"It wasn't Esther's fault. She couldn't act as if she was ashamed of him, could she? When a gentleman asks a lady to go out in his automobile she can't ask him to drive down the back streets."
"If he had only taken her at night!" groaned the harassed junior partner. "But no, he must take a whole day off and him with two patients on his hands. Look at me! Have I ever asked off to go on any picnics? Not on your tintype. Business is business. Doctors can't fool round like other folks."
Ann nodded agreement. Things were coming her way very nicely. She glanced at the wrathy Bubble out of the corners of her eyes. "I didn't think he'd be mean like that," she remarked craftily.
"Like what? He isn't mean!"
"To make you stay in all day."
"He didn't. Not him! He gave me fifty cents and told me to take a day off. 'Just run around with the medicine, Bubble,' says he, 'and then you can hike it. I have a feeling in my bones,' he says, 'that nobody's going to die to-day.'"
"Well, then—"
"A man has a sense of duty for all that."
"Well," rising with a dejected air, "if you're not coming, good-bye. It will be lovely paddling! Aunt's given me some lettuce sandwiches and two apple turnovers. One was for you, but I suppose I can eat them both. The sugar's leaked all round the edge—lovely!"
The stern disciple of business watched her tie on her sun-bonnet with mingled feelings. It began to look as if she was really going!