It was the afternoon of the day after the Croyden dance that Lorraine first got up to the Otranto Club, and had his curiosity gratified—at least as to the reasons for Porshinger's inclusion.
He found Warwick Devereux absorbing a long, cold drink on the side piazza, and was hailed to participate.
"Mighty glad to see you around," said Devereux. "Must be a month since your accident."
"I'm mighty glad to get around," Lorraine replied. "What have you been doing while I was in a hospital?"
"Do you mean me individually, or is the question intended to include the social world in general?"
"Both—the latter first, if you don't mind; it will comprehend much of the former."
"Hum!" muttered Devereux. "I suppose that is meant to be courteous, Harry, but I don't know. Well, the main thing that we have been doing, we've been doing to ourselves—making damn fools of ourselves, to be accurate."
"That is interesting!" laughed Lorraine. "How did we manage to do it?"
"It doesn't require management to do it," the other remarked, draining his glass. "The management is required when we don't do it—only, on this particular occasion, we have been more than ordinarily successful at the damn-fool business."