"Play fair!" he urged. "Amuse yourself with Mrs. Vandergilt." He looked at her as though he desired her to occupy herself with some hobby for thirty days. The sight of her face, and nothing else that she could see, made him say, "Good-by!" And he almost ran out of the room.
She went up-stairs to get her gloves. On second thought she called Ethel on the telephone and invited her to luncheon at Jerry's.
He was waiting for her at the northeast corner table when she and Ethel went in. Grace, who had been looking toward the southwest corner, where the exit to the kitchen was, turned casually and saw him.
"There's Hendrik!" she said to Ethel.
He had not risen. He looked up casually now and approached them.
"I was born lucky," he told them, and shook hands with Grace. To Miss Vandergilt he said, very seriously, "Are you Grace's friend?"
"I'm more than that," answered Ethel; "I am the best friend she's got."
"Then I am doubly lucky. I have a table, Ethel. I want you to be a witness to the miracle." There was no reason why he should call Miss Vandergilt by her first name. Even Ethel looked it. But H. R. merely said: "Take this chair, Grace. Ethel—here."
"It seems to me—" began Grace, coldly.
"Your friends are my friends. The miracle, Ethel, is that I've promised not to make love to Grace for a whole month—thirty days; forty-three thousand two hundred precious wasted minutes!"