“It must have been rather a trying moment when you had to break to him that you couldn’t possibly pay any of his debts, and that therefore you must part?”
“I don’t know anything about his debts. They don’t interest me. I can beat him at golf, playing level, and that’s far more to the point.”
“Then you are going to play golf with him, while Miss Bootes bears his proud name in return for paying his debts! Sure, it sounds a nice handy arrangement for him.”
Then Hal got up.
“I don’t want to talk to you, because you are talking such drivel; and I don’t want to look at you, because your pink and white and blue and gold irritate me beyond words, so you’d better go and stand in the middle of the room for the benefit of those who delight to gaze; and I’ll go in search of a refreshingly ugly person who can talk sense!”
Hermon gave a low chuckle of enjoyment, and continued to chuckle to himself until she was lost to sight and his hostess was introducing some charming débutante to him. The débutante was pink and white and blue and gold likewise, and gazed up at him adorably under long curling lashes; but he might have expressed a fellow-feeling with Hal, for he found himself merely bored, and longed to go in search, not of a refreshingly ugly person, but of the refreshingly irritable, snappy, unappreciative one who had just left him.
When at last he was free, however, he found Hal had complained of a headache and gone home early, unattended.
CHAPTER XXXII
On her way home Hal stopped the taxi and bought an evening paper. When she got it, however, she found Dudley there, so she merely held it under her cloak.
“You are back early,” he said, in a surprised voice.