“Now you’ll have to walk home!” said Jinny, springing into her seat. It was too ironic a climax to the morning.
“Not in my slippers!” gasped Tony.
“You should have put on your boots!” said Jinny sternly.
“But listen!” He clung to the cart as if he would stop it. “It’s a heaven-sent opportunity.”
“It must be sent back,” said Jinny gravely.
“I mean for me,” he explained desperately. “You know how Polly objects to my marrying again. But I’ve got to break the deal with Duke to her, so I could work in the two at once. It couldn’t be worse.”
“I shall never marry,” said Jinny. “Gee up!”
“But whoa, whoa, you don’t carry only your husbands,” cried Tony. “Stop!”
He pursued Methusalem for some yards, but even Methusalem was too quick for him. And then, as he stood panting and perspiring and overcome by a dark upwelling of disbelief in life, he perceived the Duchess with her manuscript and his daughter returning from the histrionic consultation at “The Learned Pig.”
“Thank the Lord, Polly’s feeding out,” he murmured, as he slunk into a doorway. Then his face brightened up. “After all,” he thought, “I’ve only got to break to her about the theatre.”