"I say, Dink, they both wanted to be remembered to you, and here's a note from Sis."
"A note?"
"Here it is."
Stover stood staring at a violet envelope, inscribed in large, flowing letters: "Mr. John H. Stover."
Then he put it in his pocket hastily and went to his room. Luckily the Tennessee Shad was poaching in the village. He locked the door, secured the transom and drew out the note. It was sealed with a crest and perfumed with a heavenly scent. He held it in his hand a long while, convulsively, and then broke the seal with an awkward finger and read:
Dear Mr. Stover: Just a word to thank you for being my faithful cavalier. Don't forget that you are to pay us a good, long visit this summer, and that we are to become the best of chums.
Your very good friend,
Josephine McCarty.
P. S. Don't dare to "kick yourself about the place," whatever that may mean.
When Dink had read this through once he immediately began it again. The second reading left him more bewildered than ever. It was the first time he had come in contact with a manifestation of the workings of the feminine mind. What did she intend him to understand?
"I'll read it again," he said, perching on the back of a chair. "Dear Mr. Stover!" He stopped and considered. "My dear Mr. Stover—Dear Mr. Stover—well, that's all right. But what the deuce does she mean by 'faithful cavalier'—I wonder now, I wonder. She wants me to visit her—she can't be offended then. 'Your very good friend,' underlined twice, that sounds as though she wanted to warn me. Undoubtedly I made a fool of myself and this is her angelic way of letting me down. 'Friend'—underlined twice—of course that's it. What a blooming, sentimental, moon-struck jay I was. Gee, I could kick myself to Jericho and back!" But here his eye fell on the postscript and his jaw dropped. "Now how did she guess that? That sounds different from the rest, as though—as though she understood."
He went to the window frowning, and then to the mirror, with a new interest in this new Mr. John H. Stover who received perplexing notes on scented paper.
"I must get some decent collars," he said pensively. "How the deuce does Lovely Mead keep his tie tight—mine's always slipping down, showing the stud." He changed his collar, having detected a smirch, and tried the effect of parting his hair on the side, like Garry Cockrell.