"How d'you mean?"
"Why, ask her to find another good-looking girl for me—I assume she is good looking—then we can make it a foursome. I'm a great entertainer, and, while I don't drink, I haven't the slightest objection to ladies who do. Dallas, I believe, is a pretty lively—"
"She's a stranger here," Buddy broke in, stiffly. His enthusiasm had cooled; he regarded Gray with veiled displeasure. "An' besides, she ain't that kind of a girl."
"Oh! Sorry! I thought from what you said—that headache—bottles in your closet, too! My mistake, Buddy."
"She'll take a drink, with me," the youth confessed. "Anyhow, she's gettin' so she will. I don't see anything wrong in a woman takin' a drink now an' then with a man she—with a man that's honorable." The last words were voiced defiantly.
Hastily Buddy's caller averred: "Nor do I. We sha'n't come to blows over an abstract moral issue like that. This is an age of tolerance, an age of equality. I flatter myself that I'm quite as lawless and broad minded as the average bachelor of our very smartest set."
"I'm—" the speaker gulped. "I'm goin' to marry her."
"Oh, fine!" Gray's enthusiasm was positively electric. He seized Buddy's hand and crushed it. "Education, indeed! No use for that now, is there?"
"I mean I'm goin' to, if I can; if she'll let me."
"Let you? With your money? Why, she'll jump at the chance. No doubt you have already asked her—or she suspects—"