“The thing for us to do,” Baron was saying, “is to go places, and let him know about it beforehand. Any place at all. For a walk in the park, or to the theatre. I wouldn’t be in the way. I would know what to do. And after—that is to say, when.... What I mean is that in the course of time you could just tell mother that you’ve made up your mind, and that it’s your business, and not hers. The thing is absurd. She’s got no reasons. We’ve no right to let her have her own way entirely in such a case.”
Bonnie May dropped the hat into her lap, and paid no attention to the shower of butterflies and roses which fell to the carpet. Quite stealthily she went out into the hall. A moment of indecision—and then she descended the stairs to the first floor.
“There’s that to be attended to, too,” she was reflecting.
She went to the telephone immediately. She had noiselessly closed the dining-room door, so she wouldn’t be heard. And after very little delay she had Mr. Addis on the other end of the wire.
“It’s Bonnie May,” she said in response to Addis’s greeting. “I called you up to tell you that you’re wanted here this afternoon. It’s really important. I think, honestly, you ought to come. Can you?”
“Why, yes, certainly!” came back the vigorous and pleasant voice of Addis. “Yes, I’ll come right away.”
In the hall she paused, thrilled by the contemplation of a good, forbidden deed. Then the warm sunlight, finding its way in through the ground-glass door, enticed her, and she went out into the vestibule. There she stood looking out on the street.
Clearly, fate was on her side.
Almost immediately two immaculately dressed gentlemen, moving with superb elegance, passed the gate.
Bonnie May ran down the steps, calling to them. “Clifton!” was the word that penetrated the chaos of street noises, and “Oh, Jack!”