Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/414

 "Names, Honey? Why, you wouldn't know 'em if I told you. There weren't but two of 'em anyhow—besides us."

Us'!" Mrs. Tinker cried, and she took a step nearer him. "Us? Who do you mean by  ' us ' ?"

At that he laughed confidently and with the heartiest indulgence for a woman's fretfulness. The unfortunate man had just determined upon a bold and radical course of action. He had been standing near Ogle when Mrs. Tinker entered the room; he had continued to stand near him, and now held him familiarly by the arm. Ogle's hat was present, which appeared to be a strongly corroborative circumstance, and Tinker's own impression was that Ogle had just come in from some outdoor excursion and had stopped casually to talk to Olivia. Moreover, Mrs. Tinker's conception of their former table companion as a harmless, dull young man would now be of service: Ogle had taken no part in the early smoking-room gayeties or subsequent card games upon the "Duumvir" and she had spoken approvingly of him, on that account, to her husband. Tinker felt that he was about to achieve a little triumph.

"Us?" he repeated, continuing his easy laughter, and then, to his daughter's almost hysterical dismay,