“Why, aren’t you with Mrs. Fitz Hugh?” she said, with light surprise.
“I?” He was puzzled to know if she were serious. “Lord, I’m going to dodge her!”
“With me? But, Tony—I’m so sorry—I’ve promised Mr. Holden to drive over with him.”
“Holden!” Longacre looked, as he felt, outraged. “But I thought, of course—”
“Why?” Florence wondered. “Did you speak of it?”
“No—but I thought, of course, that we would—oh, well!” he flung out, sulky as a boy.
“Oh, here he is!” Cissy Fitz Hugh, compressed into her habit like jelly into a mold, was upon them. Her hand was lightly on Longacre’s sleeve.
“Mr. Colton wants to put me up,” she complained, “but I said no one shall—but my cavalier!”
“Now, really, Mr. Longacre,” Mrs. Budd’s voice burst forth from the other side, “I don’t know what sort of a mount you prefer.”
She indicated the group of horses crowding away from the gibbering road-machine that ground into the porte-cochère with Thair’s hand on the throttle. Thair’s humorous regard was for Longacre’s predicament. Too late, it seemed to say, to escape from such a veteran as Cissy.