They had reached the Savoy. It seemed to Dan they were always just driving up to where some one opened a door, out of which she was to fly away from him. He got out before her and helped her from the car.
“Well, I’ve got a piece of news to tell you. I have broken my engagement with the duchess.”
This brought her back far enough into life to make her exclaim: “Oh, I am glad! That’s perfectly fine! I don’t know when I’ve heard anything that pleased me so much. Come and see me to-morrow and tell me all about it.”
CHAPTER XXI—RUGGLES RETURNS
Dan did not fall asleep until morning, and then he dreamed of Blairtown and the church and a summer evening and something like the drone of the flies on the window-pane soothed him, and came into his waking thoughts, for at noon he was violently shaken by the shoulder and a man’s voice called him as he opened his eyes and looked into Ruggles’ face.
“Gee Whittaker!” Ruggles exclaimed. “You are one of the seven sleepers! I’ve been here something like seventeen minutes, whistling and making all kinds of barnyard noises.”
As Dan welcomed him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Ruggles told him that he had come over “the pond” just for the wedding.
“There isn’t going to be any wedding, Josh! Got out of all that last night.”
Ruggles had the breakfast card in his hand, which the waiter had brought in, and Dan, taking it from his friend, ordered a big breakfast.
“I’m as hungry as the dickens, Rug, and I guess you are, too.”