"I suppose so."
Silence for a square or so, broken only by the drumming of the taxi's motor. Then I took the bull by the horns.
"Shall I tell Bonteck that, for reasons which I don't care to explain, I shall have to drop out of this badly mixed ship's company of his?"
The cool voice had fully regained its even tones when she said: "Why should you?"
"There is no 'why' unless you care to interpose one of your own making. But I should think, with Jerry Dupuyster along——"
"The Andromeda is a reasonably roomy little ship," was the calm retort. "And, besides, there are enough of us to afford protection—the protection of a crowd. If you have promised Bonteck, you can hardly break with him at the last moment, can you?"
"You don't care, then?"
"Why should I care? What is done is done, and can't be helped. Aunt Mehitable thinks I ought to marry; I suppose she thinks I owe it to her to marry and set up an establishment of my own. Perhaps I do owe it to her. I've been a charge upon her generosity all my life."
"So you are going to marry Jerry Dupuyster, a lisping club-lizard who apes the English so hard that he forgets that he has a string of American ancestors as long as your arm?" I flamed out.
"Well, if I am, what is it to you, Dick Preble? Or to any one else besides Jerry and me? Also, I might ask what right I have given you to put me upon the rack?"