Captain Cornell laughed. “You bloodthirsty old villain.”
But Hannaford did not even smile. “I know him, you don’t. Listen, let me tell you, it’s a mighty good thing them boys took a hand.”
“They’re the real stuff, Jack,” Captain Cornell agreed heartily, and his companion nodded. “The real stuff,” he said. “But, say, Jack, what’s the reason for their giving us this party tonight?”
Hannaford looked mysterious but confessed ignorance. “Only,” he added, “don’t fool yourselves none. This party ain’t bein’ give for us, or I miss my reckonin.’ We’re only the lookers-on.”
“Great guns,” cried Captain Cornell, half rising from his chair, and gazing toward the doorway. “Look who’s here.”
All eyes followed his gaze. And, truly, the vision entering the lobby was worth attention. It was Rafaela, leaning on her father’s arm, but a Rafaela so gloriously beautiful and so quaintly dressed in Spanish costume—or was it merely a touch here and there, such as the lacy black mantilla, which made her costume appear so much more picturesque than that of the more Americanized beauties who followed her?—that she took away the collective breath of the entire group.
Across the lobby Don Ferdinand, impeccably clad in dinner clothes, saw the standing group of aviators clustered about Jack Hannaford, and with a word to Rafaela, he made his way toward them. And then while the aviators gallantly professed themselves captivated, and while Rafaela and her attendant beauties blushed and bowed as prettily as ladies of the Sixties, introductions finally were achieved. Strangely enough, there was a beauty for each, with a handful left over. Even Jack Hannaford, confirmed old bachelor, groaned inwardly, as he saw a duenna—the counterpart of Donna Ana, Jack could have told him—being gently manoeuvred his way.
And Jack, where was he? And Bob and Frank? Ah, there! Coming down the stair; at their heels, Mr. Hampton and Bob’s father. Nor could any of the group, watching the approach across the lobby, guess that for the last hour tall, curly-haired Jack Hampton had been dressing with more painstaking preparations than he had ever bestowed on this operation before in his life. Nor could any have guessed that during that time he had been the target of unmerciful chaffing on the part of his chums—until at length he had attempted to expel them from his room, and a tussle had ensued, and he had been compelled at the end to undertake dressing all over again, for it had left him a ghastly ruin.
No, none of these things could have been surmised from his appearance. For, fortunately, he had not yet donned dinner jacket and vest when the tussle had begun.
A merry clatter of voices rose as the two parties met and mingled, only to be temporarily stilled when Mr. Hampton announced that they would move into the dining room. So in they poured, each gallant aviator doing his best to be a ladies’ man, with a Creole beauty on his arm, and Bob and Frank in the same case, while Jack walked beside Rafaela and neither spoke a word, yet eyes were far more eloquent than any speech could have been. And last of all came the three elders of the party—while the fourth, the real elder of all, old Jack Hannaford, strode fiercely just ahead of them, with the duenna’s fingers resting on his high-crooked arm.