Mr. Blithers had her repeat it, and then almost missed the chair in sitting down, he was so precipitous about it.
"Won't stay for her own ball?" he bellowed.
"She says it isn't her ball," lamented his wife.
"If it isn't hers, in the name of God whose is it?"
"Ask her, not me," flared Mrs. Blithers. "And don't glare at me like that. I've had nothing but glares since you went away. I thought I was doing the very nicest thing in the world when I suggested the ball. It would bring them together—"
"The only two it will actually bring together, it seems, are those damned prize-fighters. They'll get together all right, but what good is it going to do us, if Maud's going to act like this? See here, Lou, I've got things fixed so that the Prince of Groostuck can't very well do anything but ask Maud to—"
"That's just it!" she exclaimed. "Maud sees through the whole arrangement, Will. She said last night that she wouldn't be at all surprised if you offered to assume Graustark's debt to Russia in order to—"
"That's just what I've done, old girl," said he in triumph. "I'll have 'em sewed up so tight by next week that they can't move without asking me to loosen the strings. And you can tell Maud once more for me that I'll get this Prince for her if—"
"But she doesn't want him!"
"She doesn't know what she wants!" he roared. "Where is she going?"