"I'm not sure of it. He——"
"Mother," I said in despair, "you've been married for twenty years, and you know less about men in a month than I do in a minute. Please forbid him the house—not in so many words, but act it."
"Why?" she said feebly.
"Anything you can think of—Toots Warrington will do."
She got out her salts and held them to her nose.
"I feel as though I'm losing my mind," she said at last. "But if you're set on it——"
That was all until we got home. Then on the stairs I thought of something.
"Oh, yes," I said. "No matter what I am doing, mother, if Herschenrother the tailor calls up I want to go to the telephone."
I can still see her staring after me with her mouth open as I went up the stairs.
Herschenrother called me up the next morning, and asked me how I was, and how the dragons were, and if there was any chance of my walking in the park at five o'clock. I said there was, and called up Henry and asked him to walk with me.