“That was not the question, dear; I—”
“Oh, dear,” broke in the president, “if my watch is right it is time to adjourn, and yet. Why, here is Elise! What has made you late to-day?”
“A discussion with a stupid man,” cried the girl with the Roman nose. “Only think, he actually said that no woman was mathematician enough to count up her own birthdays correctly. I was so enraged—why, he said that ‘I am twenty-two’ is the same thing to a girl as ‘Polly wants a cracker’ is to a parrot, or the Spanish fandango to a guitar player—but what on earth is wrong? You all look so queer.”
“It’s nothing at all, dear,” said the blue-eyed girl. “We were just looking at your new hat, that is all. I think your watch must have stopped, Evelyn dear, for mine is only—”
“Perhaps it has,” said the president. “Tom talks so much, sometimes, that I quite forget to wind it.”
“Oh, well, it needs a rest sometimes,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin. “I know that mine—”
“Oh, dear!” said the president, “I know I am a fright to-day, and nothing but a sense of duty has brought me here. Why, I actually have not had a chance to curl my hair properly for six days, and—”
“Been getting ready your new gown, have you?” said the girl with the classic profile. “I only wish I had mine off my mind.”
“It wasn’t my new gown,” said the president. “It was Tom. He has had a heavy cold, and the house smells so strong of camphor that there will not be a moth within a block of it this year. I don’t mind being bidden a tragic farewell at mid-day, but I do mind being waked up at midnight for that purpose.”
“But it was nothing serious, was it?” asked the brown-eyed blonde. “I thought the other day, when he came to the top of the stairs and called to you that he was dying, that a man who was breathing his last would manage to do it with less noise.”