“Positive, Maisie. I’m at a loose end. I need your moral support. My duties as a foster father——”
“I understand. I thought too, Dan, it might relieve you of your embarrassment if the school or convent question could be settled tonight. I’ve been doing some thinking and am prepared to submit a plan.”
“Good news! Graves will call for you at seven o’clock. And by the way, my oldest and dearest man friend, Mark Mellenger, is coming. You met him in the office this afternoon.”
“Good! Is he interesting, Dan?”
“The Lord made but one Mellenger and then the plates were destroyed. He dines with me every Thursday night he is in town. He’s a newspaper man and Thursday is his day off. He celebrates it with me. Women have never appeared to interest Mel, and I’m looking forward to watching the effect on him of two extremes in interesting and charming women.”
“So Tamea has grown up—so soon,” Maisie challenged. Then she added, while he searched his puzzled mind for an answer: “Thank you so much for asking me over, Dan. Until a quarter past seven, then. Good-by, booby!”
CHAPTER XIII
When Dan came downstairs he found Mark Mellenger seated before the fire in the living room. Sooey Wan stood before him, vigorously shaking a cocktail mixer and discussing volubly with the newspaper man some inside facts concerning the latest tong war in Chinatown.
“Hello, here come boss. Hello, boss. How my boy tonight, eh? Velly happy, eh?” Thus Sooey Wan, his idol face wreathed in a smile that indicated his entire satisfaction with the world as at that moment constituted. Dan glared at him, for he knew the thought uppermost in that curious Oriental mind; Sooey Wan assimilated the hint but continued to grin and giggle. Mellenger stood up.
“I drink success to your administration of your new job,” he said.