CHAPTER XI
Billy and Caroline
It was one night in middle October when Billy and Caroline met by accident on Thirty-fourth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Caroline stood looking into a drug-store window where an automatic mannikin was shaving himself with a patent safety razor.
“There’s a wax feller going to bed in an automatic folding settee, a little farther down the street,” Billy offered gravely at her elbow; “and on Forty-second Street there is a real live duck pond advertising the advantages of electric heaters in the home.”
“H’lo,” said Caroline, who was colloquial only in moments of real pleasure or excitement. “I’ve just written to you. I asked you to come and see me to-morrow evening,” she added more seriously, “to talk about something that’s weighing on my mind.”
“I’m going out with a blonde to-morrow, night,” Billy said speciously, “but what’s the matter with to-night? I’m free until six-fifty 167 A. M. and I could spare an hour or two between then and breakfast time.”
“I can’t to-night,” Caroline said, “I promised Nancy to dine at the Inn.”
“That wasn’t your line at all,” Billy groaned. “Who’s the blonde?—that was your cue. If it’s only Nancy you’re dining with—that can be fixed.”
“I regard an engagement with Nancy as just as sacred as—”