The day after the Cable dinner, Bobby yawned and stretched through his morning mail. He had slept but little the night before, and all on account of a certain, or rather, uncertain Miss Clegg. That petite and aggravating young woman had been especially exasperating at the Cable dinner. Mr. Rigby, superbly confident of his standing with her, encountered difficulties which put him very much out of temper. For the first time, there was an apparent rift in her constancy; never before had she shown such signs of fluctuating. He could not understand it—in fact, he dared not understand it. "She was a most annoying young person," said Mr. Rigby to himself wrathfully, more than once after he went to bed that night. Anyhow, he could not see what there was about Howard Medford for any girl to countenance, much less to admire. Mr. Medford certainly had ruined the Cable dinner-party for Mr. Rigby, and he was full of resentment.
"Miss Keating!" called Mr. Rigby for the third time; "may I interrupt your conversation with Mr. Deever long enough to ask a question that has been on my mind for twenty minutes?"
Mr. Deever was the raw, young gentleman who read law in the office of Judge Smith, next door. Bobby maintained that if he read law at all, it was at night, for he wap too busy with other occupations during the day.
Miss Keating, startled, turned roundabout promptly.
"Yes, sir," at last, came from the pert, young woman near the window.
"I guess I'll be going," said Mr. Deever resentfully, rising slowly from the side of her desk on which he had been lounging.
"Wait a minute, Eddie," protested Miss Keating; "what's your hurry?" and then, she almost snapped out: "What is it, Mr. Rigby?"
"I merely wanted to ask if you have sufficient time to let me dictate a few, short letters that ought to go out to-day," said Bobby, sarcastically; and then added with mock apology: "Don't move, Mr. Deever; if you're not in Miss Keating's way, you're certainly not in mine."
"A great josher!" that young woman was heard to comment, admiringly.
"You may wake up some morning to find that I'm not," said Bobby, soberly. Whereupon, Miss Keating rose and strode to the other end of the room and took her place beside Bobby's desk.