The Blacktons' supper hour was five-thirty, and he was a quarter of an hour late when he tapped at Joanne's door. He felt the warmth of a strange and delightful embarrassment flushing his face as the door opened, and she stood before him. In her face, too, was a telltale riot of colour which the deep tan partly concealed in his own.
"I--I am a little late, am I not, Joanne?" he asked.
"You are, sir. If you have taken all this time dressing you are worse than a woman. I have been waiting fifteen minutes!"
"Old Donald came to see me," he apologized. "Joanne----"
"You mustn't, John!" she expostulated in a whisper. "My face is afire now! You mustn't kiss me again--until after supper----"
"Five times! John Aldous, I will never believe you again as long as I live!"
They went down to the Blacktons, and Peggy and Paul, who were busy over some growing geraniums in the dining-room window, faced about with a forced and incongruous appearance of total oblivion to everything that had happened. It lasted less than ten seconds. Joanne's lips quivered. Aldous saw the two little dimples at the corners of her mouth fighting to keep themselves out of sight--and then he looked at Peggy. Blackton could stand it no longer, and grinned broadly.
"For goodness sake go to it, Peggy!" he laughed. "If you don't you'll explode!"
The next moment Peggy and Joanne were in each other's arms, and the two men were shaking hands.
"We know just how you feel," Blackton tried to explain. "We felt just like you do, only we had to face twenty people instead of two. And you're not hungry. I'll wager that. I'll bet you don't feel like swallowing a mouthful. It had that peculiar effect on us, didn't it, Peggy?"
"And I--I almost choked myself," gurgled Peggy as they took their places at the table. "There really did seem to be something thick in my throat, Joanne, dear. I coughed and coughed and coughed before all those people until I wanted to die right there! And I'm wondering----"
"If I'm going to choke, too?" smiled Joanne. "Indeed not, Peggy. I'm as hungry as a bear!"
And now she did look glorious and self-possessed to Aldous as she sat opposite him at that small round table, which was just fitted for four. He told her so when the meal was finished, and they were following the Blacktons into the front room. Blackton had evidently been carefully drilled along the line of a certain scheme which Peggy had formed, for in spite of a negative nod from her, which signified that he was to wait a while, he pulled out his watch, and said:
