“Have you come far, Miss St. Clair?” asked Dorothy, conventionally.
“From New York,” answered the guest, taking a plate of fried chicken from Harlan’s shaky hand.
“I know,” said Dorothy sweetly. “We come from New York, too.” Then she took a bold, daring plunge. “I have often heard my husband speak of you.”
“Of me, Mrs. Carr? Surely not! It must have been some other Elaine.”
“Perhaps,” smiled Dorothy, shrugging her shoulders. “No doubt I am mistaken, but you may have heard of me?”
“Indeed I haven’t,” Elaine assured her. “I never heard of you in my life before. Why should I?” A sudden and earnest crow under the window behind her startled her so that she dropped her knife. Harlan stooped for it at the same time she did and their heads bumped together smartly.
“Our gentleman chicken,” went on Dorothy, tactfully. “We call him ‘Abdul Hamid.’ You know the masculine nature is instinctively polygamous.”
Harlan cackled mirthlessly, wondering, subconsciously, how Abdul Hamid could have escaped from the coop. After that there was silence, save as Dorothy, in her most hospitable manner, occasionally urged the guest to have more of something. Throughout luncheon, she never once spoke to Harlan, nor took so much as a single glance at his red, unhappy face. Even his ears were scarlet, and the delicious fried chicken which he was eating might have been a section of rag carpet, for all he knew to the contrary.
“And now, Miss St. Clair,” said Dorothy, kindly, as they rose from the table, “I am sure you will wish to lie down and rest after your long journey. Which room did you choose?”
“I looked at all of them,” responded Elaine, touched to the heart by this unexpected kindness from strangers, “and finally chose the suite in the south wing. It’s a nice large room, with such a darling little sitting-room attached, and such a dear work basket.”