"He expected to be married last fall, but there was a hitch in getting out his book," said Mr. Hilton, as he finished his salad. "So he couldn't get away till last month."
"We had a great interest in that book," said Elinor smiling, "for he was compiling it when he boarded with us last summer. I'm glad to hear it is out at last. We'll have to get a copy of it, for old times' sake."
Tom Hughes, who had been surreptitiously glancing at his watch beneath the table cover, spoke reluctantly.
"If you people don't want to miss the first act, we'll have to be toddling," he said. "It's about five minutes after two."
"Where are you going, Kendall?" asked Mr. Hilton as they pushed back their chairs, and stood waiting for the last button on Judith's glove to come to terms. "If you haven't settled on anything special, I'd like to have you all see the new play with me. It's said to be the finest thing in America, and I'm sure your sisters would enjoy it."
David acquiesced, as far as the play was concerned. "But you are not going to take us," he said firmly. "This is my spree and I can't let any other fellow butt in. We'll get seats together, and have a bully time, if you're willing to go with us. Come, Judy, we'll hustle on ahead and secure the seats, while these elderly folks stroll after us at their leisure."
Patricia found Tom Hughes a very agreeable companion on the walk to the theater, and they discussed tennis and swimming with an ardor that was most exhilarating, while Elinor and Mr. Hilton kept up as best they could among the holiday crowds to the brisk pace that they maintained in the lead.
The play was all that had been promised and they sat through its mystic-scenes with rapt attention, comparing notes enthusiastically in the intervals when the curtain was down, and when it was over they came out into the daylight with that peculiar sensation of unreality in the daylight world that follows an enthralling matinee.
"Don't the people seem funny-looking?" said Judith, blinking at the gayly dressed crush at the theater entrance. "They all seem like actors in a play, with the twinkly electric lights and the streaky yellow sunset behind those big buildings."
They paused a moment on the corner for a look at the twilit streets with their white pulsing points of electric lamps flickering above the hurrying crowds, while behind the sky line, with its towers and minarets and huge squares of office buildings, the clear topaz of the winter sunset surged upward in the dimming turquoise sky.