Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/71

Rh to her? It's immoral to allow people to go on like that. Teresa, you ought to do something." "I'm going to—I'm taking you home to dinner. Basil said he should probably dine out."

"Well—thank you—I shall be very happy," said Mrs. Boulter, after a moment's hesitation, which seemed to weigh the chances of Basil's dining out. Mrs. Boulter, in fact, was one of the few people who bored Basil, and she did not enjoy boring him, unless she could do it from the platform; and he would not let her mount the platform in his presence. Teresa bade an unusually cordial adieu to Miss Pease, and led her aunt, still protesting, downstairs and through the dark hall.

They turned into the avenue, jammed with the home-going crowd, where talk was an impossibility. Night had already fallen, between the rows of high buildings; but the lighted shop-fronts, the street lamps and the electric lights of the cars succeeding one another at momentary intervals, made it bright as day. They walked for a few blocks along the avenue, breasting the rustling throng, crossed between two clanging cars and a charging body of cabs and automobiles, and turned into a side street. Here it was quieter, though the roar of the avenue still pursued them, even into the palm-set hall of the apartment house.

While Mrs. Boulter was admiring the flowers