Part 16 (2/2)

”I had intended to give a little party on the nineteenth,” she confessed.

”I'm coming!” he emphatically announced.

Aunt Pattie Boyden swept into the room, and Johnny immediately felt that he had on tight shoes. He had once made a fatal error before Aunt Pattie; he had confessed to having been a voter before he owned a dress suit.

Paul Gresham arrived, and Aunt Pattie was as the essence of violets.

Paul, though American-born, was a second cousin of Lord Yawpingham.

Johnny and Paul sat and inwardly barked at each other. Johnny almost barked outwardly.

Val Russel and Bruce Townley came, and everybody breathed a sigh of relief.

”Well, Johnny,” said Val, ”I just now saw your newest speculation driving down the Avenue in a pea-green gown and a purple hat.”

”I never had a speculation like that,” denied Johnny.

”Sounds like a scandal,” decided Bruce Townley.

”You might as well tell it, Val,” laughed Constance with a mischievous glance at Johnny.

”It hasn't gone very far as yet,” replied Val, enjoying Johnny's discomfort, ”but it promises well. Johnny and I called upon a wealthy spinster, away upon Riverside Drive, this morning, ostensibly to buy real estate.”

Val, leaning his cheek upon his knuckles with his middle finger upon his temple, imitated Miss Purry's languis.h.i.+ng air so perfectly that Aunt Pattie and Gresham, both of whom knew the lady, could see her in the flesh--or at least in the bone.

”'Ostensible' is a good word in that neighborhood,” opined Gresham lightly. ”Were you trying to buy Miss Purry's vacant riverfront property?”

Notwithstanding his seeming nonchalance, Gresham betrayed an earnest interest which Constance noted, and she turned to Johnny with a quick little shake of her head, but he was already answering, and she frowned slightly.

Mrs. Follison arrived, and after her the rest of the committee came trooping by twos and threes,--a bright, busy, chattering mob which stopped all personal conversation.

Last of all came Polly Parsons, accompanied by Ashley Loring and Sammy Chirp, and by the fluffy little orphan whom she had been keeping in school for the last three years.

”I know I'm late,” declared Polly defiantly; ”but I don't adopt a sister every day. I stopped at Loring's office to do it, and I'm so proud I'm cross-eyed. Sister Winnie, shake hands with everybody and then run out in the gardens with Sammy.”

Dutifully, Winnie, in her new role of sister, shook hands with everybody and clenched their friends.h.i.+p with her wide blue eyes and her ingenuous smile; and, dutifully, Sammy Chirp, laden with her sun-hat and parasol and fan, her vanity box and lace hand-bag, took her out into the gardens, and the proceedings began as they usually did when Polly Parsons arrived. Subcommittees took cheerful and happy possession of the most comfortable locations they could find, and Constance Joy walked Ashley Loring out through the side porch.

”There's a very cozy and retired seat in the summer-house,” she informed him. ”I wish to have a tete-a-tete with you on a most important business matter.”

”You may have a tete-a-tete with me on any subject whatsoever,” laughed Loring. ”I suppose it's about those Johnny Gamble attachments, however.”

”It's about that exactly,” she acknowledged. ”What have you learned of the one for fifty thousand dollars which was attempted to be laid against Mr. Gamble's interest in that hotel property yesterday?”

”Very little,” he confessed. ”It is of the same sort as the one we discussed the other day.”

Constance nodded. ”Fraudulent, probably,” she guessed.

”I think so myself,” agreed Loring. ”Trouble is, n.o.body can locate the Gamble-Collaton books.”

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