"Why, Mr. Kirkwood! ... But I left you at Mrs. Hallam's!"
Kirkwood bowed, smiling openly at Mulready's discomfiture.
"By your father's grace, I came with him," he said. "You ran away without saying good night, you know, and I'm a jealous creditor."
She laughed excitedly, turning to Calendar. "But you were to meet me at Mrs. Hallam's?"
"Mulready was good enough to try to save me the trouble, my dear. He's an unselfish soul, Mulready. Fortunately it happened that I came along not five minutes after he'd carried you off. How was that, Dorothy?"
Her glance wavered uneasily between the two, Mulready and her father. The former, shrugging to declare his indifference, turned his back squarely upon them. She frowned.
"He came out of Mrs. Hallam's and got into the four-wheeler, saying you had sent him to take your place, and would join us on the Alethea."
"So-o! How about it, Mulready?"
The man swung back slowly. "What you choose to think," he said after a deliberate pause.
"Well, never mind! We'll go over the matter at our leisure on the Alethea."