But Beverly had a better right to be taken aback. “I suppose you must have some reason for your remark,” he said.
“You don’t mean that you’re engaged to her?” I shot out.
“Me? With my poor little fifteen thousand a year? Consider, dear boy! Oh, no, we’re merely playing at it, she and I. She’s a good player. But Charley—”
“He is?” I shouted.
“I don’t know, old man, and I don’t think he knows—yet.”
“Beverly,” said I, “let me tell you.” And I told him.
After he had got himself adjusted to the novelty of it he began to take it with a series of thoughtful chuckles.
Into these I dropped with: “Where’s her father, anyhow?” I began to feel, fantastically, that she mightn’t have a father.
“He stopped in Savannah,” Beverly answered. “He’s coming over by the train. Kitty—Charley’s sister, Mrs. Bleecker—did the chaperoning for us.
“Very expertly, I should guess,” I said.