The clock in the lower hall chimed four. Barbara would be at the party now, and he was so glad she had gone. Twice Dora had called up the back stairs to ask if he wanted dinner earlier as Barbara would not be home, once she had asked if he would like the eggs “cuddled”, she meant coddled, of course, and he said he would. And he even conceded a half-hour in favor of Dora’s earlier meal so that she could go to the beach to see the fish boats come in.
Also, there had been two telephone calls to jerk him out of his reverie, and already he was missing Barbara.
And now the door-bell!
“Might as well put work aside for today!” the doctor told himself, for while Dora was preparing a meal she never deigned to answer the door.
“Hey there!” came a shout through the hall. “May I come up?”
“Yes, come along. Glad you are nobody else,” called back Doctor Hale, while Glenn Gaynor was already dashing up the stairs.
“Barbara gone?” he asked sharply, as if hoping she wasn’t and knowing she was.
“Yes, went long ago,” answered the doctor. “You’re going to the dance, I hear.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” The boy, who was so big and good-looking that he might well have been called a young man, tossed his cap down impatiently, and folded his brown arms to keep them out of mischief. “I hate these affairs——”
“Now, see here, Glenn,” said the doctor, in that unmistakable voice that starts a lecture, “all work and no play, you know——”