Theodore laughed, and stepped gracefully away, his long coat swinging outward with his motion. Garrison caught a gleam of red, where the coat was parted at the bottom—and he knew where he had heard that laugh before. The man before him was no other than the one he had seen next door, dressed in red fleshings as Satan.
It was not to be understood in a moment, and Theodore's parents had returned once more to the door. Indeed, the old man had beheld the momentary hand-clasp of the men, and he was nettled.
"Theodore!" he cried; "you're not making friends with a man who's sneaked off and married Dorothy, I hope! I wouldn't have believed it!"
"Why not?" said his son. "What's done is done."
His mother said: "Why have you got on an overcoat such a night as this?"
"Because I like it," said Theodore.
Garrison knew better. He wondered what the whole game signified.
The old man was glaring at him sharply.
"I should think for a man who has to leave at nine your time is getting short," he said. "Perhaps your story was invented."
Garrison took out his watch. The fiction would have to be played to the end. The hour lacked twenty minutes of nine. He must presently depart, yet he felt that Dorothy might need protection. Having made up his mind that a marriage had doubtless been planned between Dorothy and Theodore—on the man's part for the purpose of acquiring valuable property, probably veiled to Dorothy—he felt she might not be safe if abandoned to their power.