“Hallo, Mr. Grey! Will you be wantin’ your bank cleaned this week?” was Nancy’s rejoinder.
“Perhaps so. I’ll let you know,” Mr. Grey replied, as he walked past her to his brougham, where Herbert White stood talking to Louie of a moonlight sail on the river the next night, and saying he should call for her at half-past seven.
Mr. Grey had suspected that there was, or might be something serious between the young man and his daughter, and he found himself wondering if the trouble would end it.
“Probably,” he said to himself, but greeted Herbert cordially and invited him to go home with them to dinner.
Herbert might have accepted but for his father, who came puffing from the post-office, his hands full of letters, one of which he handed to his son, saying:
“It’s from Fred, and I have one from Esther. They sailed yesterday for Europe, where they are to join Miss Percy. Come, hurry; I want to get home out of this heat. How are you, Grey?”
This last was in response to Mr. Grey’s cordial, “Good-afternoon, judge. Hot day, isn’t it?”
Herbert bowed to Mrs. Grey and Louie, and walked toward his carriage, but the Grey brougham was ahead of it, sending back clouds of dust which made the judge sneeze and choke and wipe his eyes as he wondered “Why in thunder Grey wanted to drive so fast and raise such an infernal dust!”
“Don’t he know it’s blowing right in my face, or don’t he care?—the upstart, with livery!”
No dust could have been so bad as the Grey dust, and the judge went on grumbling until the obnoxious carriage turned into a by-street, leaving the road unobstructed.