"George!"
"Well, wasn't that what it meant? Be honest!"
"What what meant?"
"That sigh."
"I didn't sigh. I was just breathing."
"Then you can breathe in this atmosphere! You surprise me!" He raked the terraces with hostile eyes. "Look at them! Look at them—crawling round like doped beetles. My dear girl, it's no use your pretending that this sort of thing wouldn't kill you. You're pining away already. You're thinner and paler since you came here. Gee! How we shall look back at this and thank our stars that we're out of it when we're back in old New York, with the elevated rattling and the street cars squealing over the points, and something doing every step you take. I shall call you on the 'phone from the office and have you meet me down town somewhere, and we'll have a bite to eat and go to some show, and a bit of supper afterward and a dance or two; and then go home to our cozy—-"
"George, you mustn't—really!"
"Why mustn't I?"
"It's wrong. You can't talk like that when we are both enjoying the hospitality—"
A wild laugh, almost a howl, disturbed the talk of the most adjacent of the perambulating relations. Colonel Horace Mant, checked in mid-sentence, looked up resentfully at the cause of the interruption.