"Why not?" she returned, with an arching of the eyebrows.
"Why," he said, "perhaps I had better make a clean breast of it."
"Perhaps you had," she said, and they both laughed, though he laughed with a knot between his eyes.
"The fact is, you know, this isn't my treat, exactly. It's Mr. Stoller's." At the surprise in her face he hurried on. "He's got back his first letter in the paper, and he's so much pleased with the way he reads in print, that he wants to celebrate."
"Yes," said Mrs. March, non-committally.
Burnamy laughed again. "But he's bashful, and he isn't sure that you would all take it in the right way. He wants you as friends of mine; and he hasn't quite the courage to ask you himself."
This seemed to Mrs. March so far from bad that she said: "That's very nice of him. Then he's satisfied with—with your help? I'm glad of that."
"Thank you. He's met the Triscoes, and he thought it would be pleasant to you if they went, too."
"Oh, certainly."
"He thought," Burnamy went on, with the air of feeling his way, "that we might all go to the opera, and then—then go for a little supper afterwards at Schwarzkopf's."