Coventry answered his sister's call with promptitude.
"I'll keep you only a moment from your whisker-parterres, Cov! When you go back into that down-stairs garden please give some of those beards a good hard yank for my sake."
But young Mr. Daunt was serious and rebuked her. "This isn't any lark we're on up here, Dorrie! Dad needs to have everybody's good will and I'm doing my little best on the side-lines for him. And he isn't tickled to pieces by your quitting. It's a big project we're gunning through this legislature!"
"It may be so! It probably is! But I'm not sacrificing four fingers, a thumb, and a perfectly good arm for the cause and I'm not allowing public affairs to take my mind wholly off private matters. So here's at it! Are you and Lana formally engaged?"
"Well, I must say you're not abrupt or anything of the sort!"
"Certain semi-coaxing methods haven't seemed to succeed, and therefore I'm shooting the well, as our oil friend Whitaker puts it!"
"Simply for the sake of keeping our affectionate brother-and-sister relations on the safe and approved plane, I'll say it's none of your blamed business," declared Coventry. "On the other hand, in a purely tolerant and friendly way, I'll say that Lana and I are proceeding agreeably, I think, and dad told me the other day that the Senator talked as if the matrimonial bill might receive favorable consideration when duly reported from committee—meaning Lana and myself and—"
"Gas!" broke in Mrs. Stanton. "I shot and I get only gas! I'm looking for oil! Is there an actual and formal engagement, I ask?"
"Oh, say!" expostulated her brother, registering disgust. "The motion pictures have spoiled that sort of thing. They have to propose bang outright in the films because the fans can't be bothered by the nuances of courtship. But for a chap to get down on his knees these days in real life would make the girl laugh as loud as the fans would whoop if the hero in reel life stood on his head and popped the question. Nothing of that kind of formal stuff in my case, sis! Of course not!"
"There better be! You go ahead this very night and attend to it!"