"I am."
"I thought you said you had never met any one who could make you so angry?"
"Come and get me at five o'clock," said Beecher, with a trifling wave of his hand.
"I begin to have my doubts," said Gunther slowly, with the air of one steeling himself against a great calamity.
Beecher had no such anticipation as he went lightly out of the club and took his way up the Avenue. For the last day he had thought much more of the possible feelings of Nan Charters toward his own receptive person than of analyzing the impregnability of his own position. He had not telephoned, desiring to effect a little surprise. But as he neared his destination he remembered that she might possibly be out.
"In that case I'll leave a little note—just a line with the check—as though it were a casual affair," he said to himself.
But Miss Charters was in. An automobile was at the curb which he thought he recognized.
Miss Charters herself answered the door, detaining him a moment in the anteroom.
"I am so glad you came," she said in a low voice, but one in which it was impossible to mistake the pleasure. "I wanted you to know that. A friend of yours is here—but he won't stay long," she added softly, with that gentle appeal in her voice against which he knew no defense. "You'll stay—I want you to."
"Who is it?" he asked.