“You are a blockhead!” exploded the younger man.
“All right, I am.” Courtlandt laughed.
“Man, she wrote me that she would sing Monday and to-night, and wanted me to hear her. I couldn’t get here in time for La Bohème, but I was building on Faust. And when she says a thing, she means it. As you said, she’s Irish.”
“And I’m Dutch.”
“And the stubbornest Dutchman I ever met. Why don’t you go home and settle down and marry?—and keep that phiz of yours out of the newspapers? Sometimes I think you’re as crazy as a bug.”
“An opinion shared by many. Maybe I am. I dash in where lunatics fear to tread. Come on over to the Soufflet and have a drink with me.”
“I’m not drinking to-day,” tersely. “There’s too much ahead for me to do.”
“Going to start out to find her? Oh, Sir Galahad!” ironically. “Abby, you used to be a sport. I’ll wager a hundred against a bottle of pop that to-morrow or next day she’ll turn up serenely, with the statement that she was indisposed, sorry not to have notified the directors, and all that. They do it repeatedly every season.”
“But an errand of mercy, the strange automobile which can not be found? The engagement to dine with the Barone? Celeste Fournier’s statement? You can’t get around these things. I tell you, Nora isn’t that kind. She’s too big in heart and mind to stoop to any such devices,” vehemently.
“Nora! That looks pretty serious, Abby. You haven’t gone and made a fool of yourself, have you?”