“Oh, no. I’m taboo there since I lived in Philadelphia. Besides, I’m not a bachelor any more, you know. If Patty only wouldn’t insist on dragging me out——”
Patricia laughed.
“Twice, Ross, already this winter,” Crabb continued. “It’s cruelty, nothing less.” But the perpetrator of the outrage was smiling, and she leaned forward just then and laid her hand in that of her husband, saying with a laugh, “Mort, you know we’ll have to get Ross married at once.”
“Me?” said Burnett, in alarm.
“Of course. A bachelor only sneers at a Benedick when he has given up hoping——”
“Oh, I say now—I’m not so old.”
“Then you do hope?”
“Oh, no, I only wait—for a miracle.”
“This isn’t the age of miracles,” remarked Patty thoughtfully, “at least not miracles of that kind. How can you expect anyone to fall in love with you if you go on leaping from one end of the earth to the other. No girl wants to marry a kangaroo—even a diplomatic kangaroo.” She paused and examined him with her head on one side. “And yet you know you’re passably decent looking——”