“Not a bit!”
“I am,” said Victoria, “but I think you'd better come just the same.”
Around the corner of the house they found them,—Mr. Crewe urging the departing guests to remain, and not to be bashful in the future about calling.
“We don't always have lemonade and cake,” he was saying, “but you can be sure of a welcome, just the same. Good-by, Vane, glad you came. Did they show you through the stables? Did you see the mate to the horse I lost? Beauty, isn't he? Stir 'em up and get the money. I guess we won't see much of each other politically. You're anti-railroad. I don't believe that tack'll work—we can't get along without corporations, you know. You ought to talk to Flint. I'll give you a letter of introduction to him. I don't know what I'd have done without that man Tooting in your father's office. He's a wasted genius in Ripton. What? Good-by, you'll find your wagon, I guess. Well, Victoria, where have you been keeping yourself? I've been so busy I haven't had time to look for you. You're going to stay to dinner, and Hastings, and all the people who have helped.”
“No, I'm not,” answered Victoria, with a glance at Austen, before whom this announcement was so delicately made, “I'm going home.”
“But when am I to see you?” cried Mr. Crewe, as near genuine alarm as he ever got. “You never let me see you. I was going to drive you home in the motor by moonlight.”
“We all know that you're the most original person, Victoria,” said Mrs. Pomfret, “full of whims and strange fancies,” she added, with the only brief look at Austen she had deigned to bestow on him. “It never pays to count on you for twenty-four hours. I suppose you're off on another wild expedition.”
“I think I've earned the right to it,” said Victoria;—“I've poured lemonade for Humphrey's constituents the whole afternoon. And besides, I never said I'd stay for dinner. I'm going home. Father's leaving for California in the morning.”
“He'd better stay at home and look after her,” Mrs. Pomfret remarked, when Victoria was out of hearing.
“Since Mrs. Harry Haynes ran off, one can never tell what a woman will do. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if Victoria eloped with a handsome nobody like that. Of course he's after her money, but he wouldn't get it, not if I know Augustus Flint.”