They walked in silence for several minutes, not looking at each other, until she said as they neared the Burgess gate:
“After all, I’m the foolishest little Susie in the world; and it’s a lot better for me to go back and be Susan again, and not go to dinner parties where I’m not expected.”
And what Pendleton seemed to say, though she was not sure of it, was:
“Never!—not if I know myself!”
“Do you suppose,” Mrs. Burgess asked her sister as they saw Susie tripping along beside Pendleton, “that she has carried it through?”
“From Brown Pendleton’s looks,” said Floy, “I should judge she had. But—it can’t be possible that she’s coming in here again!”
Susie and Pendleton lingered at the gate for an instant, in which he seemed to be talking earnestly. Then together they entered; and in a moment Mrs. Burgess and Floy faced them in the drawing room, where Pendleton announced with undeniable relief and satisfaction the good news from Poughkeepsie.
“Then I suppose you will make the address at the university after all?” said Mrs. Burgess. “I find that so many matters are pressing here that I shall have to forego the pleasure of joining you; and Floy, of course, will have to be excused also.”
“On the other hand,” said Pendleton with the most engaging of smiles, “I must beg you not to abandon me. Our party of last night was so perfect, and the results of it so important to me, that I shall greatly regret losing any member of it. I propose in my address tonight to assert my claims to the discovery of the brickyards of Nebuchadnezzar as against all the assertions that contradict me in Geisendanner’s romantic fiction about the bronze gates of Babylon. I should like you all to be present, and I am going to beg you, as a particular favor, Mrs. Burgess, to invite Miss Parker to accompany us; for, without her helpful hint as to the existence of that copy of Glosbrenner’s confession, where, I should like to know, would I be?”