"Dick," said Mrs. Harlan, with extreme politeness, "I am perfectly willing that Lola should have all the best of it. I am used to that. I am quite prepared to admit that she is younger than I am, and better looking, although I still think that she might get along without telling me of it herself. It's none of my business how much money you give her, nor how much she may bully you in private, but, my dear boy, I am just naturally damned if I'll put up with her tantrums any longer."
"But, Madge," pleaded Dick Fenway, rather anxiously, "Lola is--a little nervous!"
"She's all of that," agreed Mrs. Harlan. "We started out to make a jolly party of this and it's winding up like an Irish wake. Look at Bob."
In response to her rather dramatic invitation, Dick turned his head, and did as he was requested. He looked at Bob, and in spite of his disturbed mind he found himself smiling. Bob Nelson, who made up the fourth in their little party, was a stout young fellow in the late twenties, whose sole ambition in life seemed to centre about a desire not to have rows; he sat on the sand a few paces away from them, and was earnestly practicing his favorite amusement, which consisted in fixing his eyes firmly upon nothing whatever, and allowing his mind to "stand without hitching," as he had once described it, a mental gymnastic only possible of achievement inside of a skull so constituted as to allow the brain an abundance of room.
"Bob," continued Mrs. Harlan firmly, "is getting good and tired of the way things are going. We don't mind a little change now and then, but we do object to being politely requested to get out of every hotel between Palm Beach and Quebec. Bob! What is your opinion of the way Lola is going on?"
Bob, evidently anxious to do the subject full justice, gave the matter at least a moment's calm thought before he replied.
"I--er--yes----" He then, with considerable satisfaction, resumed his former amusement, only slightly troubled by the unusual mental effort.
Although somewhat in doubt as to precisely what he was supposed to see, Dick was content to assume that it was not exactly a compliment to Lola.
Lola had been making rows; there was no denying that. She was difficult to please, and absolutely indifferent to the rights of others. She was constantly getting them into disputes with the hotel clerks, the servants, or with the other guests, and on several occasions during their trip they had been politely informed that their rooms were needed for other purposes. All this had been fully as annoying to Dick as it had to either of the others, but during the six weeks they had been together, his love for her had grown into a great passion that made no account of her faults, although it could not blind him to them.
