“Thank you, sir. I have waited a long time for Laura, but she is mine at last. Won’t you stay and break a bottle of champagne?”
“Thanks, but I must be off. I have another engagement I must fill.”
“I can imagine where.”
“Yes,” dryly, “and probably this will be as happy a night to another man as it is to you—he has found a wife as well as yourself.”
“And the lady you refer to is the sweetest and best little woman in the world—save one”—hastily correcting himself—“the man must be a fool who could doubt her constancy.”
“You don’t know all, Prescott. Her husband is the truest, noblest man I know. He rejected it all again and again, but he is human and he saw and heard things that would convince a skeptic.”
“Probably he understands all by this time, and he will eat humble pie too.”
“I hope so. Good night, Mr. Prescott. Bring the doughty colonel to his knees.”
“I’ll wring his nose if he gives me any further trouble, the old nuisance.”
“Success to you.”