Page:Love Insurance - Earl Biggers (1914).djvu/221

196 He couldn't offer a suggestion. "Dear old chap," he moaned, "I depend on you."

Three-thirty! Well, Thacker and Jephson had asked the impossible, that was all. Minot felt he had done his best. No man could do more. He was very sorry for Jephson, but—golden before him opened the possibility of Miss Cynthia Meyrick free to be wooed.

Yet he must be faithful to the last. At a quarter to four he read Jephson's cablegram again. As he read, a plan ridiculous in its ineffectiveness occurred to him. And since no other came in the interval before four, he walked into Miss Rose's presence determined to try out his weak little bluff.

The Gaiety lady was playing on the piano—a whispering, seductive little time. As Minot stepped to her side she glanced up at him with a coy inviting smile. But she drew back a little at his determined glare.

"Miss Rose," he said sharply, "I have discovered that you can not sue Lord Harrowby for breach of contract to marry you."

"Why—why not?" she stammered.