“You’ll have your dude to dinner all right,” her husband announced. “He’s in town.”
“Yes, I know,” rejoined his spouse. “I had a letter from him yesterday. From Imperial.”
Tom sat up glaring. “He wrote to you from Imperial?”
His wife misplaced the accent. She misunderstood Tom’s scowl. It was the old story over again. Whenever those two men came together, the old feeling of jealousy must be revived again! It was unpleasant, of course, very unpleasant to have men care like that, but it made life exciting. Life had been getting a little stale lately; like a book of obvious even plot. Rickard’s entrance into the story gave a new interest, a new twist. She hummed an air from a new opera that had set the world waltzing.
Hardin’s thoughts did not touch her at the hem. He was at the head-gate, his gate. What the deuce had Rickard gone to Imperial for? If he wasn’t the darndest ass! Imperial! And the gate hung up!
“For God’s sake stop that buzzing!”
The happy little noise was quenched. Innes, entering at that moment, heard the rough order. She looked imploringly at her sister-in-law.
“Supper’s on the table,” cried Gerty, the fixed determined smile still on her lips.
CHAPTER XII
A DESERT DINNER
INNES HARDIN was completing her simple toilet. Not even to please Gerty would she “dress up” for this dinner! It would have been easy for her sister-in-law to postpone it. How could she expect Tom to go through with it! She couldn’t understand Gerty!