"Suppose we get caught."
"I say, there's no danger of that?" said Fred, alarmed. "I'm in deep."
"No, not much, but there's always the chance of a slip," said Bojo, who began to wonder if a successful issue would not further complicate Fred's sentimental entanglements.
At this moment they came to a stop, and Fred said in a comforting tone:
"Louise'll be furious because I brought you."
"You old humbug," said Bojo, perceiving the eagerness in Mr. Fred's eyes. "You're just tickled to death."
"Well, perhaps I am," said Fred, laughing at his friend's serious face. "Say, she has a way with her—hasn't she now?"
Miss Louise Varney did not seem over-delighted at the spectacle of a guest in the party as she came running out, backed by the vigilant dowager figure of Mrs. Varney, who never let her daughter out of her charge. But whatever irritation she might have felt she concealed under a charming smile, while Mrs. Varney, accustomed to swinging in solitary dignity in the back seat, welcomed him with genuine enthusiasm.
"Well, Mr. Crocker, isn't this grand! You and me can sit here flirting on the back seat and let them whisper sweet nothings." She tapped him on the arm, saying in a half voice: "Say, they certainly are a good looking team now, ain't they?"
The old Grenadier, as she was affectionately termed by her daughter's admirers, was out in her war paint, dressed like a débutante, fatly complacent and smiling with the prospect of a delicious lunch at the end of the drive.