“Go slow! Did you say Utica or Utah?”
“Everybody thought I ought to marry one or the other of ’em, I mean. If I could have married them all, now, it might have been easier, for I like them ever so much. But how could I make up my mind? So I just seized papa around the neck and ran away with him down here.”
“Why here, of all places on earth?”
“Oh, he’s interested in some mines and concessions and things. It’s very beautiful, but I almost wish I’d stayed at home and married Bobby.”
“Which is Bobby?”
“He’s one of the home boys. We’ve grown up together, and I’m so fond of him. Only it’s more the brother-and-sister sort of thing, if he’d let it be.”
“Check off No. 1. What’s No. 2?”
“Lots older. Mr. Thomas Murray Smith is an unspoiled millionaire. If he weren’t so serious and quite so dangerously near forty—well, I don’t know.”
“Have you kept No. 3 for the last because he’s the best?”
“No-o-o-o. Because he’s the nearest. He followed me down. You can see his name in all its luster on the Hotel Kast register, when you get back to the city—Preston Fairfax Fitzhugh Carroll, at your service.”