“They shut me off without giving me time to answer.”
“Well, call them up. Call them up at once.”
“Jane, please have some sense. How do I know where Miss Goodson has gadded off to? How do I know what number to call up?”
“Well, I just wouldn’t go.”
“Oh, I’ll have to. They are friends, and if they are expecting that girl of theirs home to-night and she doesn’t come Mrs. Goodson will go out of her mind.”
So Jones drove himself forth, clad in righteous indignation and a waterproof coat. The cold rain lashed him and the wind belabored his umbrella, and he was more than once obliged to pause under friendly porches to get his breath. At last the home of the Goodsons was reached, and spent and weary he staggered up the steps. Goodson himself opened the door.
“Hello, Jones, you’re no fair weather friend indeed. Come in, come in.”
“No, I’m too wet,” he answered, pointedly (and he felt like adding “and too mad”). “I only came to tell you that Miss Goodson won’t be at home to-night.”
“My daughter! She is at home. Don’t you hear her playing on the piano now? Come into the vestibule, anyway.”