Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/57

 Then one evening he learned from Kay that the Dowlings were not going to the Fair, and took matters into his own hands with his usual readiness for trouble. He came to the ranch house, where Henry was drowsily reading the Ursula paper.

"Mr. and Mrs. Bill Sawyer are entertaining the five-hundred club this evening."

"Dicer's Emporium reports a new importation of corsets. That's right, Sam. We still believe in 'em."

Herbert was playing solitaire, and Kay had already gone up to bed. Tom rapped outside, opened the screen and clumped in his high-heeled boots to the living room door. Henry looked up and Herbert continued to move his cards, but he had stiffened.

"Understand you're not going in to the Fair," Tom said, tall and handsome and arrogant in the doorway.

"Not this year; Mrs. Dowling"

"How about my taking Miss Kay, then? She sure ought to see it."

Herbert put down his cards and rose.

"If Miss Dowling wants to go to the Fair I'll take her," he said.

Tom eyed him.

"She's got to decline my invitation first."

"Not necessarily!"

"How do you get that way?" Tom demanded angrily.

"Where do you come in on this anyhow? I'm talking to Mr. Dowling."

Henry, thus brought in, was puzzled and startled. He had never associated Kay's riding with this cowboy save in the way he associated Herbert with himself, as somebody to open gates. Now he was considerably outraged. He looked at the two, each so fiercely confronting the other, and put up his hand.

"That's enough," he said. "More than enough." And to Tom: "If Kay wants to go to the Fair, Tom, Mr. Forrest will take her."

"That's not"