"It's lucky the street came along to help," he breathed. "Twenty yards more——"
Mary Louise reached up a hand to her hair in a futile effort to stem the havoc there. A moment of furious attempt to quiet the racing in her veins, and then, quite calmly, "It's all as it should be. We've got to look out for such things and take advantage of them. There are no ifs and buts about being caught. You didn't—that's all."
Joe opened his mouth to speak, stared at her a moment, and then turned away his eyes. They trotted along in silence, the shadows deepening and lengthening.
Directly: "When does your tea room open?"
"To-morrow. I'll be fine and stiff to start it off." Both question and answer had taken on a fine flavour of impersonality. Quiet again, with only the clatter of hoofs on the roadway. Directly they turned a wide sweeping curve and before them appeared a wooden gateway set at the end of an avenue of elms, at the other end of which showed, dim and forbidding, a house with columns and a green roof. Joe dismounted and, unlatching the gate, turned and stood grinning at her.
"So you're really goin' to try it out?" His voice had the quality of self-questioning.
It broke in on her musings and she seemed a bit impatient. "Of course I'm going to try it out. Only there isn't much 'try' to it. It's bound to make a go."
"Some little difference between a merely commercial proposition and a popular charity like the Red Cross. There's no percentage in just guzzlin' tea for fun unless you're doin' it to keep Americans from starvin' or doughboys from itchin'. You know what I believe?" He turned on her suddenly. "You're just scrapin' up an excuse to—to——" He stammered, hesitated in indecision. "Tea!"
"Don't be maudlin, Joe!" Her tone was very cold. "If you must know, we need the money and——Well, I guess I learned enough about tea and tea rooms in the past ten or eleven months to know whether one will pay or not—if it's properly run. Got awfully hardboiled while you were in the army, didn't you? Come, open the gate."
He was silent. Mary Louise usually could put him in his place. But thus put in his place, Joe could assume all the irritable stick-to-itiveness of a child. "How about Miss Susie?"