“Yes, indeed, Miss Ainsworth, I heard you phoning about it. Go, by all means, but I do not think you will like the Doric. The tires are all right, but the cylinders are under size, and this causes a constant friction with the magneto which impairs the efficiency and makes the car a poor climber and weak on endurance runs.”
That is probably not what he said at all, but it is what Eveley understood him to say, and from it she gathered that she might go at three, but that there was something perfectly terrible about the Doric that made it impossible for her to buy it, but of course she could not disappoint the salesman with the deep blue eyes, and so she would have the demonstration anyhow.
From three o’clock on, the afternoon was a perfect daze of magnetos and batteries and gas feeders and real leather upholstery. But Eveley interrupted once, to run into a drug-store to the public telephone, to call Kitty, and when she had her friend on the wire she said eagerly:
“Oh, Kit, we are trying out the Doric. It is awfully good some ways, and rotten some ways, and so of course I can’t buy it, but the salesman has the most irresistible eyes you ever saw in your life, and so I am wearing my new blue veil, and I look a dream in it. Now you scoot up to the Cote, will you, and have supper ready for us at six—Nolan and me. If Nolan were not along I might bring the blue-eyed Doric man, but he is so overbearing about those things—Nolan, I mean. Get a nice juicy steak, he needs nourishment. I think if I could feed him constantly for a month and save him from the restaurants he might develop enough animal magnetism to—anyhow, he needs the steak, so get a good one at Hardy’s and charge it to me. And will you go by the cleaners, and get my motor gloves—they said it would only be a quarter for the cleaning, so don’t pay them a cent more. Will you? That’s a nice girl.”
At six o’clock, wearily, happily, still discoursing earnestly of magnetos and batteries, Eveley and Nolan climbed the rickety rustic steps, brightening visibly as the odor of broiling steak and frying potatoes was wafted out to them. Nolan went in first, carefully stepping out of the way before he reached a hand to assist Eveley, for he knew that she would fall headlong among the cushions she kept conveniently placed for that purpose. “It is easy enough getting in, if you take your time,” she always said defensively to criticizing friends. “But I am usually in a hurry myself, so I keep the cushions handy.”
On this evening, being tired, she remained on the floor where she had comfortably landed, and lazily removed her hat and veil, tossing them lightly into a distant corner.
“If it wasn’t for the carburetor rubbing on the spark plugs,” she said plaintively, “I’d get the Doric in spite of everything. Did you ever see such blue eyes in your life, Nolan?”
“The Mason is a better car in every way,” he said flatly. “Strongly built, low hung, smart-looking, and the engine perfect.”
Eveley frowned. “Isn’t that like a man? The Mason! I wish you could have seen him, Kitty. Fifty years old if he was a day, and bald, and two double chins. And talked through his nose. And what do you suppose he talked about? His wife—and how she loves the Mason. What do I care what his wife thinks about the Mason? I wouldn’t have the Mason if he offered me one. I’ll bet it is so easy riding that it fairly sprouts double chins—on the drivers.”
“You are buying a car, Eveley—not a driver,” Nolan explained.