"Is that true?" Miriam demanded of Bobo.
Poor Bobo lacked the backbone to come out flatly for either one side or the other. He fidgetted miserably. "I don't know. Maybe. I forget."
Miriam's luscious mouth had become a thin red line. "He can't go. He has an engagement with me."
"Now that's too bad!" said Jack with deceitful solicitude. "He can't disappoint a big man like Mr. Delamare. Besides, there are important matters to be decided."
Miriam was near the fulminating point. She looked stormily at Bobo. "Well? Have you nothing to say? It's up to you!"
Bobo made a pitiable attempt to assert himself, but he could not meet Jack's eye. "I didn't know he was coming," he muttered. "I can't go now. Anyway you know about everything. You can talk to him."
"There are papers to be signed," said Jack. "I can't do that."
Bobo hung in an abject state of indecision.
Miriam could stand no more. She kept her voice low out of respect to the other people in the tea room, but her words lost none of their force thereby. "Are you going to sit there and let this nobody tell you what to do? If you've got a spark of manliness, why don't you put him in his place? He mocks you to your face! His very look is an insult to me! Are you going to stand for that? Why don't you invite him to kick you while he's at it?"
Jack thought: "Good Lord! Will he still want to marry her after getting such a taste of her quality as that?"