“Whom did you get, then? Not——”
“I got Susie,” said Burgess, shooting his cuffs.
“Susie?”
“Susie!” he repeated with falling inflection.
“What Susie?”
“Well, Gertie, to be quite frank, I’ll be hanged if I know. I haven’t the slightest, not the remotest, idea.”
“What do you mean, Web?—if you know!”
The clock on the stairs below was chiming half past six. Burgess grinned; it was not often he had a chance like this. In social affairs it was she who did the befuddling.
“I mean to say that, though her name is Susie, it’s rather more than a proper name; it’s also a common noun, and chock-full of suggestions—pleasant ones, on the whole.” She was trying to free herself of her gown, and one of the hooks caught so that he had to extricate her. Half angry, half alarmed, she seized him by his lapels, for fear he might escape before she had put an end to his foolishness. “She said her name was Parker; but I rather question it. She looks like a Susie, but the Parker is something of a misfit. For myself, I prefer to cut out the Parker.”
“Web Burgess, tell me just what you have been up to! Don’t I know this person?”