With much difficulty Anthony retained a scanty breech-clout of dignity.
"Now that's a slight exaggeration. You know darn well I sold an essay to The Florentine—and it attracted a lot of attention considering the circulation of The Florentine. And what's more, Gloria, you know I sat up till five o'clock in the morning finishing it."
She lapsed into silence, giving him rope. And if he had not hanged himself he had certainly come to the end of it.
"At least," he concluded feebly, "I'm perfectly willing to be a war correspondent."
But so was Gloria. They were both willing—anxious; they assured each other of it. The evening ended on a note of tremendous sentiment, the majesty of leisure, the ill health of Adam Patch, love at any cost.
"Anthony!" she called over the banister one afternoon a week later, "there's some one at the door." Anthony, who had been lolling in the hammock on the sun-speckled south porch, strolled around to the front of the house. A foreign car, large and impressive, crouched like an immense and saturnine bug at the foot of the path. A man in a soft pongee suit, with cap to match, hailed him.
"Hello there, Patch. Ran over to call on you."
It was Bloeckman; as always, infinitesimally improved, of subtler intonation, of more convincing ease.
"I'm awfully glad you did." Anthony raised his voice to a vine-covered window: "Glor-i-a! We've got a visitor!"
"I'm in the tub," wailed Gloria politely.