"Vee," says I, "our peevish friend is invitin' us to take tea with him. Shall we chance it?"
And you know what a good sport Vee is. She lets the curve come into her mouth corners again, both of her cheek dimples show, and she shoots a quizzin' smile at Mr. Shinn.
"Does he say it real polite?" she asks.
"Na," says MacGregor. "But there'll be hot scones and marmalade."
"M-m-m-m!" says Vee. "Let's, Torchy."
It's an odd finish to an affair that started so scrappy. Not that Shinn reverses himself entirely, or turns from a whiskered golf grump into a stage fairy in spangled skirts. He goes right on with his growlin' and grumblin'—about the way his Chink cook serves the tea, about havin' to live in a rotten hole like Harbor Hills, about everything in general. But a great deal of it is just to hear himself talk, I judge.
We had a perfectly good high tea, and them buttered scones with marmalade couldn't be beat. Also he shows us all over the house, and Vee raves about it.
"Look, Torchy!" says she. "That glimpse of water from the living-room windows. Isn't that dear? And one could have such a wonderful garden beyond. Such a splendid big fireplace, too. And what huge beams in the ceiling! It's a very old house, isn't it, Mr. Shinn?"
"The rascally agent who sold it to me said it was," says MacGregor, "but I wouldn't believe a word of his on any subject. 'Did I ask you for an old house, at all?' I tells him. For what I wanted was just a place where I could live quiet, and maybe have me game of golf when I wanted it. But here I've gone off me game; and, besides, the country's no place to live quiet in. I should be in town, so I should, like any decent white man. I've a mind to look up a place at once. Try another scone, young lady."
So it was long after six before we got away, and the last thing MacGregor does is to load Vee down with a whole armful of lilac blossoms.