Clifford was silent for a moment. He had noted that Peter Loveman was watching them from his corner, and that the lithe, dark gentleman he had been closely observing during the evening—his name was Hilton—was now seated at the table adjoining them and was covertly watching Mary.
“Don’t register here together,” he said abruptly.
“Why not?” exclaimed Jack.
“Would you mind explaining?” Mary asked quietly.
Clifford remembered himself. Only that very morning he had told Mary that he would no longer try to help shape the course of her life—that he would keep his hands off—that hereafter he would let Life pull the strings of her destiny. And here he was interfering again.
“I guess I wasn’t thinking,” he said, trying to be casual. “Anyhow, it’s really none of my business.”
Mary gazed at him sharply. She surmised that some idea had been behind his remark; but she did not speak. Jack, whose gaze had wandered, gave a start and cried out:—
“Hello, there’s dad! And he’s spotted us—look, he’s coming this way!”
Clifford glanced at Jack’s father, an erect man of fifty, with unchallengeable dominance in his manner which the lordship of large affairs had developed from his native self-confidence. Then quickly Clifford glanced back, and managed to comprehend with his gaze both Mary and the dark man at the next table. Mary, grown tense as crisis approached in the form of the elder Morton, said quickly to Jack in a low voice:—
“Introduce me by another name: Gilmore—anything!”