“About two pounds,” Roderick answered, absent-mindedly.
Grant Jones was fairly choking with laughter. “I say, Barbara,” he began.
“I didn’t go trout fishing alone,” interrupted Roderick quickly.
“Look here, Barbara,” persisted Grant, calling to her across the table. But Barbara was all attention to Roderick.
“Who went with you?” she inquired.
“Miss Gail Holden,” he replied and his face was actually crimson.
Barbara laid down her knife and fork and leaned back in her chair, placed her arms akimbo with her pretty hands on her slender waist line, and looked at Roderick as if she were an injured child. Finally she said: “Trifler!” Then everybody laughed at Roderick’s confusion.
But he quickly recovered himself.
“Trifler yourself!” he laughed back in rejoinder. “What about Ben Bragdon? What would he have said had we gone trout-fishing together?”
“You were not out of the running then,” said Barbara archly.