"I can't have him hate me, Steb," he explained. "We're both of us worn pretty thin. If you could give up to-day and to-night——"
They shook hands.
"It's every minute, practically, you know, Steb," he added doubtfully, "it's a good deal."
"Oh, get on!" the other broke in, with a good-natured shoulder clap.
As he swung the glass door of the club behind him, Dillon ran down a messenger-boy, bulging with yellow envelopes. The boy glanced at him questioningly.
"Mist' Wardwell, Adams, Stebbins, 'r Waite?" he inquired, holding out four telegrams as he slipped in.
Dillon shook his head, and walked down the steps.
One more night and she would be all to win, no promise between, no scruple that a lover might not smother. Shame on him if he could not woo more persuasively than a mystical evangelist! In the evening he would see her; the precious little note lay warm over his heart.
He dined alone, he could not have said where, and an idle impulse for the lights and bustle of the great thoroughfare sent him strolling down Broadway. It was too early for the crowd, and he found himself guessing vaguely as to the characteristics of the couples that met and passed him. That tall, slender lad, for instance, with such a hint of Bob—poor, troublesome Bob!—in his loose, telltale swagger, what had led him to the dark-eyed creature that tapped her high heels beside him? As she came under the light, one saw better; her flashing smile, her careless carriage of the head, her broad sweep of shoulder, had a certain charm—great heavens, it was Bob steadying himself on her arm! A moment, and the familiar drawl reached his ear:
"An' so you always want to choose mos' prom'nent place, every time, an' you're safe's a church. No chance to meet y'r dear frien's——"