The door opened.
“Hello, Kirk. That you? Come along in. You’re just in time for the main performance.”
He caught sight of Mamie standing beside Kirk.
“Who’s that?” he cried. For a moment he thought it was Ruth, and his honest heart leaped at the thought that his scheme had worked already and brought Kirk and her together again.
“It’s me, Steve,” said Mamie in her small voice. And Steve, as he heard it, was seized with the first real qualm he had had since he had embarked upon his great adventure.
As Kirk had endeavoured temporarily to forget Ruth, so had he tried not to think of Mamie. It was the only thing he was ashamed of in the whole affair, the shock he must have given her.
“Hello, Mamie,” he said sheepishly, and paused. Words did not come readily to him.
Mamie entered the house without speaking. It seemed to Steve that invective would have been better than this ominous silence. He looked ruefully at her retreating back and turned to greet Kirk.
“You’re mighty late,” he said.
“I only got your telegram toward the end of the afternoon. I had been away all day. I came here as fast as I could hit it up directly I read it. We had a blow-out, and that delayed us.”