At last Mr. Hamshaw decided to take Louise. "I'll tell her tomorrow," he said to himself, quite sure that it was only necessary to tell and not to ask. But that evening, just after returning from the club, he saw something that troubled and harassed him not a little. He saw and heard Sago talking to the Misses Frost—not only talking but in a manner so familiar that it must have been extremely nauseating to the cultured young women. The three were standing under the electric light at the corner, and the young women instead of appearing annoyed at the heathen's twaddle, seemed to be highly amused. Only the greatest exercise of self-restraint kept Mr. Hamshaw from kicking Sago into the middle of the next block.
Mr. Hamshaw was on the point of intervening when, to his utter consternation, the two young women started off up the street with Sago. To add to his misery, Sago did not come in at all that night. In response to Mr. Hamshaw's savage inquiry, Ellen, who attended him the next morning, said that Sago had gone to a dance on the West Side and had not turned up. Mr. Hamshaw sat bolt upright in bed and then collapsed.
The next afternoon he went home early, haggard and with a headache. His confidence was not gone, however. After arranging himself carefully—he refused to call for Sago—he boldly descended to the second floor. Then he lost his nerve. Instead of ringing the Gladding door-bell he walked on downstairs and out into the open air. At the corner he came plump upon Mr. Gladding himself, the step-father of the two girls.
"How are you, Mr. Hamshaw? Fine weather we're having," greeted the man from the second floor.
"I've just been to your flat," said Mr. Hamshaw.
"Indeed! Any one at home?"
"I don't know—that is, I didn't go in. You see—are you going home now, Gladding, or downtown?"
"Home, of course. I've been downtown all day. Anything you wanted to see me about, Mr. Hamshaw?"
"Oh, no—nothing important."
"Well, won't you come up with me now? By the way, I'd like you to meet my wife and her daughters."