"Regard me instead as a wall," said Hayden pleasantly, "which has ears but no tongue. Won't you vouch for my discretion, Mademoiselle Mariposa?"
"As I would for the chairs and tables to which Mrs. Ames so amiably compares you," smiled Ydo.
When Hayden returned from putting the old lady in her carriage he showed all the elation of one who has scored heavily.
"Aha!" he cried. "Warning me one moment with serious argument against the Inevitable ennui induced by settling in Eldorado and all the time preparing to build your own castles there!"
"But not for permanent residence," she protested, "and I assure you, I have not even decided whether or not to build there at all. My real home is for ever in Arcady. Do you think, seriously think, that there is anything in Eldorado which can hold me when I see the beechwoods growing green, and hear the fifes of June in my ears and get a whiff of the wild‑grape fragrance? Then I know that there's nothing for me but Arcady; and it's up and away in the wake of the clover‑seeking bee. But you're a man, Bobby, who has—what is that awful phrase?—oh, yes, 'accepted responsibilities,' and you'll stay there in Eldorado, bound by white arms and ropes of gold."
CHAPTER XIII
Marcia had been causing Hayden much perturbation and unrest by keeping him very sedulously at a distance. The glimpses he had had of her recently had been few and far between, and in response to his pleadings and reproaches, he was informed that her time was tremendously occupied and that she was absorbed in a picture she was anxious to finish by a certain time. In consequence, he was inordinately delighted to hear her voice one morning over the telephone—although the reason she gave for calling him up occasioned his undisguised surprise, for she informed him that sometime during the day he would receive an informal invitation from Mrs. Ames requesting him to be present at a luncheon she was giving at the Waldersee the following day.
"Mrs. Ames! Inviting me!" Hayden uttered rapid fire exclamations. "Well, it is a foregone conclusion that I shall not accept, of course."