"Anywhere. May sit up till morning, anyhow. Feel like it. Your show sort of goes to my head."
"My show? Yours! But why on earth don't you come down and——?"
"By and by, son. Say, send me some clean linen and I'll see that this room's in shape for the lady—girls all busy yet. Room swept yesterday. My truck's packed. I'll have things ready in ten minutes."
Tom went downstairs feeling more than ever that his guest was an enigma. But he was too busy to stop just then to think about it.
The hours went by. The guests talked and laughed, ate and promenaded. They crowded the porch to watch the fireworks on the mountain; they swept over the smooth space and the roadway in front of the Inn, looking up at it and remarking upon the quaint charm of it, the desirability of its location, its attractiveness as a resort. Tom heard one pretty girl planning a luncheon here next week; he heard a group of men talking about entertaining a visiting delegation of bankers up here at Boswell's out of the heat.
Everywhere people were asking, "Why haven't we known about this?" and to one and another Arthur Haskins, in Tom's hearing, was saying such things as, "Just opened up. Jolly place, isn't it? Going to be the most popular anywhere around. Deserves it, too."
"But is the table as good every day as it is to-night?" one skeptic inquired.
"Better." Haskins might have been an owner of the place, he was so prompt with his flattering statements. "First time I came up was with a crowd of fellows. We took them unawares, and they served a supper that made us smile all over. Their cook can't be beaten—and the service is first-class."
It was over at last. But it was at a late hour that the first cars began to roll away down the hill, and later still when the last got under way. They carried a gay company, and the final rockets, spurting from West Peak, flashed before the faces of people in the high good humour of those who have been successfully and uniquely entertained.
The Lieutenant-Governor and his wife had gone to the pink and white welcome of the bridal suite when Perkins at last came strolling downstairs. Only Haskins's party remained in the flag-hung lobby, the women sheathing themselves in veils, as their motor chugged at the porch steps.