Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/232

 "The scheming rascal!"

"But tell me what you're doing here, Mr. Ames. Are you here for long?"

"Only passing through," he replied with a smile. "I leave for New York to-morrow."

"Oh, so soon?" she said disappointedly. "I hoped you'd have time to be a little bit nice to me. What about this evening? Couldn't you dine with us? Mr. Audel would be so pleased."

"Not this evening, thank you. I'm dead tired. Just got in from a two weeks' swing over the road. May I look you up to-morrow forenoon?"

"Do! My suite is 208. Don't forget!"

"I live for to-morrow!"

"You're a good-for-nothing blarnier," she laughed as she swept away.

Gordon dined in his room alone. His secretary, having friends in town, had hurried into dinner togs and taxied off northward. A bath had rested Gordon considerably, and, as he loitered over his coffee in a dressing-robe, he meditated spunking up and going to a theater. There were plenty of people he might have called on, but he didn't feel in the mood for them. Turning to the theatrical advertisements in an evening paper, he