He handed the card to Mrs. Tully and repaired to his old room to remove the stains of travel before joining his father at dinner.
Some twenty minutes later his unusual votive offering was delivered by George Sea Otter to Colonel Pennington's Swedish maid, who promptly brought it in to the Colonel and Shirley Sumner, who were even then at dinner in the Colonel's fine burl-redwood-panelled dining room. Miss Sumner's amazement was so profound that for fully a minute she was mute, contenting herself with scrutinizing alternately the pie and the card that accompanied it. Presently she handed the card to her uncle, who affixed his pince-nez and read the epistle with deliberation.
“Isn't this young Cardigan a truly remarkable young man, Shirley?” he declared. “Why, I have never heard of anything like his astounding action. If he had sent you over an armful of American Beauty roses from his father's old-fashioned garden, I could understand it, but an infernal blackberry pie! Good heavens!”
“I told you he was different,” she replied. To the Colonel's amazement she did not appear at all amused.
Colonel Pennington poked a fork through the delicate brown crust. “I wonder if it is really as good as he says it is, Shirley.”
“Of course. If it wasn't, he wouldn't have sent it.”
“How do you know?”
“By intuition,” she replied. And she cut into the pie and helped the Colonel to a quadrant of it.
“That was a genuine hayseed faux-pas,” announced the Colonel a few moments later as Shirley was pouring coffee from a samovar-shaped percolator in the library. “The idea of anybody who has enjoyed the advantages that fellow has, sending a hot blackberry pie to a girl he has just met!”
“Yes, the idea!” she echoed. “I find it rather charming.”