"You do me great honor; but the affair must wait for a lower temperature."
"As you will! It is not like my great and gracious ways to force a fight. Pardon me, but may I inquire for the health of the ladies at Saint What's-her-name's?"
"They are quite well, thank you."
"I am glad to know it;"—and his tone lost for the moment its jauntiness. "Henry Holbrook has gone to New York."
"Good riddance!" I exclaimed heartily. "And now—"
"—And now if I would only follow suit, everything would be joy plus for you!"
He laughed and slapped his knees at my discomfiture, for he had read my thoughts exactly.
"You certainly are the only blot on the landscape!"
"Quite so. And if I would only go hence the pretty little idyl that is being enacted in the delightful garden, under the eye of a friendly chaperon, would go forward without interruption."
He spoke soberly, and I had observed that when he dropped his chaff a note of melancholy crept into his talk. He folded his arms and went on: "She's a wonderful girl, Donovan. There's no other girl like her in all the wide world. I tell you it's hard for a girl like that to be in her position—the whole family broken up, and that contemptible father of hers hanging about with his schemes of plunder. It's pitiful, Donovan; it's pitiful!"