“Thank you, Dicky dear,” she responded, smiling up at him. Since her earnest gaieties had begun, Dick had been her most frequent companion. He was one of the component members of that zestful little set composed of Gail, Lucile and Arly, and the bubbling little Mrs. Babbitt, the cherub-cheeked Marion Kenneth, the entirely sophisticated Gwen Halstead, and whatever nice men happened to be available. Dick and Ted and Gerald were, of course, always available.
“I’m disappointed,” complained Dick. “You don’t blush any more when I am affectionate with you.”
“One loses the trick here,” she laughed. “The demands are too frequent.”
He bent a little closer to her.
“I’m going to propose to you again to-night,” he told her.
“You’re so satisfactory,” she returned carelessly. “But really, Dicky, I don’t see how you’re going to manage it, unless you perform it right here, and that’s so conventional.”
“Play hooky,” he mischievously advised. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. You shoo Houston out of the house the minute you get in; then Lucile and Ted and Arly and Gerald and I will sail up and carry you off to supper, after which I’ll take you home and propose.”
Gail’s eyes snapped with the activity of that disloyal programme, and the little silvery laugh, for which she had been so noted, welled up from her throat.
“You have to wait around the corner until he goes away,” she insisted.
“I’ll bring a guitar if you like,” Dick promised, with so much avidity that she feared, for an instant, that he might do it.