Late Thursday afternoon, as he was working out the last pages of the time-killing fiction, the door of the Studio opened without a knock, and Donald Manford walked in. Donald certainly continued to make himself very much at home here.
"Get out," said Charles, tired and cross. "What do you think this is, a Wheelman's Rest?"
The tall engineer said that he was passing and thought he'd drop in. But with the aid of an eyebrow he made known, over Judge Blenso's snowy head, that he desired private converse in the bedroom.
The public talk between the two young men, continuing, was that Donald wanted to borrow a white waistcoat from Charles, which Charles was rather reluctant to lend him. Thus, gradually, they faded from the Studio, much to the annoyance of the Judge, who had ceased typing on purpose to listen, while ostensibly merely engaged in picking lint from his types with a brass pin.
When the door of the bedroom was shut, Donald Manford said, in low hurried tones:—
"Have you heard all this talk about Mary? I tell you the town's buzzing with it!"
Charles had heard no talk; he was disturbed, if scarcely surprised. But when it became clear that the purpose of Donald's visit was to get him, Charles, to "drop a hint to Mary," he refused at once, point-blank.
The engineer was pained and astonished.
"You don't understand the situation," said he, stewing. "I tell you Mary's gone to work to make a heroine of that woman! Recommending her for good jobs, with her morning, noon, and night, having people in to meet her at tea! Now, of course, she just doesn't understand what she's doing. She's too innocent; she's ignorant of the practical meaning of this business. And it's my duty to protect her from her ignorance...."
Charles sat down on one of the parallel white beds—the Judge's. And little as he sympathized with Miss Trevenna's Blow for Freedom, he seemed to sympathize even less with his young friend's proprietary absurdities.