“Well, so here you are, my dear!” exclaimed little Mr. Alexander, coming from the smoking-room, in time to see his wife sink upon a huge lounge in the large reception hall.
Had it not been that Mr. Dalken, Tom, and the ladies now hastened to greet the new arrivals, Mrs. Alexander might have amused herself by scolding her spouse for his neglect in meeting her train at the station—though she had failed to mention in the telegram the time of its arrival in Denver. Being the center of interest, because of the fuss she made over the collision in front of the hotel, Mrs. Alexander forgot to take her husband to account for his oversight of duty.
Mr. Dalken had planned to leave Denver the following morning—in fact, he would not have stopped over-night at the hotel, had it not been for the wire received by Mr. Alexander, in which Mrs. Alexander said she would join the party in Denver that evening.
Now, to end the lady’s little tableau, Mr. Dalken looked at his watch. “We must retire, friends, if we wish to get the train to Albuquerque to-morrow morning.”
“Oh!” cried Mrs. Alexander, “I cannot think of it! I have a great deal of shopping to attend to and, besides, I promised faithfully that Dodo and I would wait here for a certain dear friend to join us. He leaves the Springs in the morning, and I am sure he will be with us by noon.”
“Who is he?” demanded her little lord and master. “Not a fool who’s after Dodo’s money, I hope.”
“Ebeneezer! How can you speak so shamelessly of your child’s admirers?” complained Mrs. Alexander.
“Don’t worry, Daddy,” added Dodo, frankly as ever. “He makes a fine fetch-and-carry addition to Ma’s cortège, and I don’t mind him a bit—he manages to dust his wisp of a moustache upon my finger-tips now and then, and that seems to pay him for his doglike devotion to Ma.”
“But why wait for him to come to Denver?” demanded her father.
“Why—because Ma invited him to join your party on its trip to Arizona. She thinks the invigorating climate may cause certain dormant brain cells in sweet little Algy’s cerebrum to open. If that should develop, think how thankful we would be!” Dodo laughed heartlessly.