Then followed two pages about shells, which Mr. Weston, raising a bored eyebrow, skipped.
"Those books you sent were bully. They look very interesting. I haven't had time to read them yet. Tell Laura they use boa-constrictors here instead of cats; and tell her that the flowers are perfectly wonderful."
Then came something about suffrage, ending with a ribald suggestion that the suffragists should get a Filipino candidate—"He wouldn't cost so much as the chief of bosses, Mr. Smith; a Moro will root for 'votes for women' if you promise him a bottle of whisky."
"He is not losing sleep over being rejected," Arthur Weston thought, as he handed the letter back to her.... He had lost some sleep himself, lately: "And there's no excuse for it," he told himself; "I didn't fall in love, I strayed in—in spite of sign-posts on every corner! And now I'm in, I can't get out. Damn it, I will get out!" But each day it seemed as if he 'strayed' farther in....
"Why has H. M. gone off?" Laura asked Frederica.
"Why, you know! Shells," Fred said, astonished at the question.
"Tell that to the marines. Freddy, you bounced him!"
"I did not."
"Well, then, if you didn't, what color are the bridesmaids' dresses to be?" Laura retorted.
"Get out!" said Frederica.