"It is dangerous," Challoner asserted, ignoring the invitation to share the sofa. "Think for yourself. At Heatherleigh there are my servants. At the office there are my clerks. Do you suppose they haven't tongues in their mouths or eyes in their heads? If that does not constitute danger, I'll thank you to tell me what does."
"But you forbid me to telephone, so how am I to communicate with you unless I write? You call so seldom. I hardly ever see you now."
"Oh! come," he remonstrated, "I was here Sunday week."
"But that's Beattie's afternoon at home. You know I always give it up to her friends. And a whole crowd of them was here Sunday week—Fred Lawley, and the Busbridge boys, and Marion Chase. I didn't get three words with you."
Challoner glanced at her in sharp anxiety.
"Fred Lawley come up to the scratch yet?" he asked.
"If you mean has he proposed, I am sure I can't tell you. I don't know myself. I suppose if he had, Bee would have told me. He seems tremendously gone on her. But you never can be sure of a man till your engagement has been publicly announced."
It was Challoner who laughed a little this time.
"Not quite invariably even then," he said.
His chin settled into the V of the turned-back corners of his high shirt-collar, while his eyes returned to contemplation of those vexatiously baggy trousers. Mrs. Spencer began to speak, but he hulled down her voice by asking, rather loudly: