"You have a festive air to-night," remarked Osterhout.
"Yes. It's the special symphony concert this evening. I'm taking Constance."
"No, you're not," contradicted a hoarse and gay voice. Pat smiled upon them from the entrance.
The two men turned to look at her. She stood, one hand above the tousled shimmer of her short, dark hair, lightly holding by the lintel. In her eyes were laughter, anticipation, and a plea. Her strong, young figure preserving still much of the adorable awkwardness of undeveloped youth, had fallen into a posture of stilled expectancy. She wore a sweater of some exotic, metallic blue, a short, barred skirt, and woollen stockings, displaying the firm, rounded legs.
"You're taking me. Aren't you?" she added in the husky, breaking sweetness of her voice.
Into the minds of the two men darted diverse responses to the appeal of the interrupter. Cary Scott thought, "What a child it is!" Wiser and more cognisant, through experience of the years, Robert Osterhout said within himself, "Good Lord! It's a woman."
"Why the charming substitution?" inquired Scott in the manner which, to her unfailing delight, he used toward Pat as toward any of his older associates.
"Con's got a headache."
Cary Scott understood perfectly. This was subterfuge on Constance's part. She was unready to face the issue. There had been a preamble between them on the previous evening; tacitly it was understood that this evening was to determine their future relations. And now she was shirking the crisis. Or was she merely playing the part of the "teaser," drawing back the more to inflame his ardour—and perhaps her own? Of the two hypotheses Scott inclined to the former. It was more in consonance with her natural inertia of character. If she were in love with him it was not the kind of love which justified itself by daring, by taking the risks, by boldly facing sacrifice. Inexplicably he felt a quality of relief mingling with his natural pique. He was well satisfied to postpone, to let the decision go, to find relaxation in taking Pat to the concert. In the companionship of this eager, acute, vivid child he would breathe a clearer atmosphere, with something of a mental stimulus, a tingle in it, that which he most missed in his association with the married sister. All of this rapid cogitation was quite without reflected effect upon his imperturbable manner as he said:
"Tell Constance that I'm so sorry, won't you? And that I appreciate her sending so delightful a substitute."