"Ah, there, Murph. You don't look like the morning after. Sorry I haven't got room for you. We've got other plans. We love the ladies."
"I'm tied up, anyway. So long."
Willard's tone was too patronizing, but he was not to blame, for the days when they would exchange intimate greetings at all were numbered. As Neil left them one of the elegant guests demanded audibly:
"Who's your friend?"
Neil flushed but did not look back. He had an errand to do in the few minutes before his appointment with Judge Saxon. He crossed the street to Ward's store.
Ward's Dry Goods Emporium, three stores in one, and literally three stores bought out one by one, and joined by connecting doors, though they could never be united in their style of architecture, was rather dark and chaotic inside, though a brave showing of plate glass across the front advertised its prosperity. Luther Ward himself, in his shirt sleeves, was looking over a tray of soiled, pale-coloured spats, assisted by a tall, full-bodied girl with a sweet, sulky mouth, and a towering mass of blue-black hair.
"Hello, Donovan, what's new?" he said, with only a shade more condescension than Willard, and distinctly more friendliness.
"Nothing, sir," said Neil with conviction.
"You want to talk to Maggie, here. I won't intrude on a family quarrel," said Mr. Ward, and chuckling heartily at his own mild joke, as he generally did, and few others did, disappeared into the furniture department, the central one of the three stores, and his favourite. The two cousins regarded each other across the tray of spats as if the family quarrel were not a joke, but an unpleasant reality.
"You can't come here and take up my time," stated Miss Brady.