“I'm weary of being called Miss Ruey. I want to be Dolores—to you.”
“By the toenails of Moses,” he reflected, “there is no escape. She's determined to rock the boat.” Aloud he said: “All right, Dolores. I suppose I may as well take the license of the old family friend. I guess Bill won't mind.”
“Billy hasn't a word to say about it,” she retorted, regarding him with that calm, impersonal, yet vitally interested look that always drove him frantic with the desire for her.
“Well, of course, I understand that,” he countered. “Naturally, since Bill is only a man, you'll have to manage him and he'll have to take orders.”
“Caliph, you're a singularly persistent man, once you get an idea into your head. Please understand me, once for all: Billy Geary is a dear, and it's a mystery to me why every girl in the world isn't perfectly crazy about him, but every rule has its exceptions—and Billy and I are just good friends. I'd like to know where you got the idea we're engaged to be married.”
“Why—why—well, aren't you?”
“Certainly not.”
“Well, you—er—you ought to be. I expected—that is, I planned—I mean Bill told me and—and—and—er—it never occurred to me you could possibly have the—er—crust—to refuse him. Of course you're going to marry him when he asks you?”
“Of course I am not.”
“Ah-h-h-h!” John Stuart Webster gazed at her in frank amazement. “Not going to marry Bill Geary!” he cried, highly scandalized.