After saying he would return in the evening, he rushed off to keep his engagement for tea. He was late in arriving at the flat.
“Here he is!” cried Edna, eagerly. Her eyes sparkled; she was in high spirits. Florence, too, was smiling. The girls seemed to have been in great merriment, and in possession of some cause of felicitation as yet unknown to Larcher. He stood hesitating.
“Well? Well? Well?” said Edna. “How did he take it? Speak. Tell us your good news, and then we'll tell you ours.” Florence only watched his face, but there was a more poignant inquiry in her silence than in her friend's noise.
“Well, the fact is,” began Larcher, embarrassed, “I can't tell you any good news just yet. Davenport couldn't keep his engagement with me to-day, and I haven't been able to see him.”
“Not able to see him?” Edna exclaimed, hotly. “Why didn't you go and find him? As if anything could be more important! That's the way with men—always afraid of intruding. Such a disappointment! Oh, what an unreliable, helpless, futile creature you are, Tom!”
Stung to self-defence, the helpless, futile creature replied:
“I wasn't at all afraid of intruding. I did go trying to find him; I've spent the afternoon doing that.”
“A woman would have managed to find out where he was,” retorted Edna.
“His landlady's a woman,” rejoined Larcher, doggedly, “and she hasn't managed to find out.”
“Has she been trying to?”