Mrs. “Ted” studied me from beneath lowered lids. “Oh!” she said, and “Oh!” again. Then she linked her arm in mine. “There are chairs behind this palm,” she suggested.
We sat down. “Page,” she said, “I would not have believed it of you if you had not told me yourself.”
“What?” I asked, but her gaze was disconcerting; and when she smiled wisely, I did not repeat the question.
She laid her fan across my hand. “I wonder,” she remarked, reflectively, “I wonder how and when you and Margery met. But, no, that is unfair. Don’t tell me. I am very glad you did meet—that is all. And I was nearer to the truth than I thought when I asked you about coincidences. This is what I was going to tell you. Margery is the guest to-night of Edith Page—Mrs. Stoughton Page. At the last moment Edith’s baby was taken ill with the croup, and she sent word she could not leave home. She asked me to act as chaperon. Soon afterward Stoughton Page arrived in his car with Margery, and must have hurried home at once when he heard the baby was sick, for I haven’t been able to find him. I have told Margery that Mrs. Page was detained at home, but I have not told her the details, and I don’t wish you to. She would think it more serious than it is, and it would spoil her evening.”
I nodded.
“And now,” she went on, “the affair is up to you and me. I am chaperon, and you are one of the few men she appears to know. What are you going to do about it?”
A minute before I would have replied: “Tell her the whole truth.” But now a way out of the immediate complications seemed to present itself—a way beset with difficulties, but still a way. I made the one reply which seemed to be safe. “Do?” I said. “Do all I can to give Miss Gans a good time. I don’t dance, you know, but——”
“But I’ll hang around and talk to her and take her into supper—if she’ll let me—and—all that sort of thing.”
“You dear!” cried Mrs. “Ted.” “You dear, self-sacrificing thing!” With this last she cocked a supercilious eye.