“Perfectly, sir.”
Jim writhed at that. But he had done his best and he would take the worst.
The farmer gave him a ride to the hotel in his milk-wagon. When Jim rode up in a parody of state he saw Charity peeping from the parlor window. The morning light had made the situation plain to her. It did not improve on inspection. It took very little imagination to predict a disastrous event, though Jim explained the felicity of his scheme. He had planned to have Charity ride in in the limousine alone, while he took his own car back with the gasolene that was on the way.
The twain were compelled by their costume to stay in the parlor together. They were ferociously hungry and ordered breakfast at last. It took forever to get it, for guests of that hotel were not ordinarily early risers.
Skip Magruder, dragged from his slumbers to serve the meal, found Charity and Jim in the room where he had left them. He made such vigorous efforts to overlook their appearance in bedraggled dinner clothes at a country breakfast that Jim threatened to break his head. Skip grew surly and was ordered out.
After breakfast Jim and Charity waited and waited, keeping to the parlor lest the other guests see them.
At last the limousine arrived. As soon as he heard it coming Jim hurried to the window to make sure that it was his—or, rather, his wife's.
It was—so much his wife's that she stepped out of it. Also her mother. Also her father. They advanced on the hotel.
Jim and Charity were stupefied. There was a look on Kedzie's face that frightened him.
“She means business,” he groaned.