He turned in between the ornate gates of Red Towers—the two posts surmounted by lions upholding a mythical coat of arms—and drew up in the shadow of an imposing porte-cochère. A gay group of ladies and gentlemen were gathered in lounging chairs on the veranda, engaged with frosted glasses of mint julep; while Mrs. Booth-Higby herself, coifed and gowned as for an evening reception, was standing in the glass doors of the drawing-room. As her gaze fell upon Peter she strolled toward him with a voluminous rustle of draperies.
"Whose man are you?" she inquired, with an air of languid condescension.
Peter's face reddened slightly. The entire group had ceased their conversation to stare.
"Mr. Jerome Carter's," he replied, fumbling for the note.
"Ah!" said Mrs. Booth-Higby, with a lifting of the eyebrows.
"It should have come three days ago," Peter glibly lied. "Miss Carter give me a lot o' them to deliver; this one must have slipped down the crack between the cushions an' got overlooked. We come across it this mornin' when we was washin' the buckboard, so I drove over with it on me way home from the marketin'. I hope that it ain't important, and that ye won't feel called upon to tell Miss Carter? It would get me into trouble, ma'am."
Her face had cleared slightly during this recital; it was evident that she knew about the garden party, and had entertained emotions over the absence of her own invitation. She saw fit now to work off her stored-up anger upon the delinquent. Peter knew his place, and respectfully swallowed the scolding, but he did it with a cordial assent to Miss Ethel's description of the lady's character. She ended by bidding him wait for an answer. He heard her say, as she swept down the veranda:
"Excuse me a moment while I answer this note. It's from Ethel Carter, Jerome Carter's daughter, you know"—evidently this was a name to conjure with—"an invitation to meet Lord Kiscadden. It should have come three days ago, but their man stupidly forgot to deliver it. He is begging me not to report him, though I feel that such carelessness really ought to be punished." She rustled on into the house, and Peter sat for twenty minutes flicking the flies from Trixy's legs.
"An' she's a daughter o' Tim McGarrah!" he repeated to himself. There had been nothing snobbish about Tim; he was hail-fellow-well-met with every voter east of Broadway. "She's ashamed of him now," Peter reflected, "and won't let on she ever heard the name; but the old man was ten times more a gentleman than his daughter is a lady, for all his saloon!"