“I’ve suspected as much. That would settle the obnoxious critic, wouldn’t it! Though it’s rather a roundabout way.”
“Ban! You’re beastly.”
“Yes; I apologize,” he replied quickly. “But—have I got to revise my estimate of you, Betty? I should hate to.”
“Your estimate? Oh, as to purchasability. That’s worse than what you’ve just said. Yet, somehow, I don’t resent it. Because it’s honest, I suppose,” she said pensively. “No: it wouldn’t be a—a market deal. I like Tertius. I like him a lot. I won’t pretend that I’m madly in love with him. But—”
“Yes; I know,” he said gently, as she paused, looking at him steadily, but with clouded eyes. He read into that “but” a world of opportunities; a theater of her own—the backing of a powerful newspaper—wealth—and all, if she so willed it, without interruption to her professional career.
“Would you think any the less of me?” she asked wistfully.
“Would you think any the less of yourself?” he countered.
The blossoming spray broke under her hand. “Ah, yes; that’s the question after all, isn’t it?” she murmured.
Meantime, Gardner, the eternal journalist, fostering a plan of his own, was gathering material from Guy Mallory who had come in late.
“What gets me,” he said, looking over at the host, “is how he can do a day’s work with all this social powwow going on.”