"No, we can't do that," I said without too much emphasis. "Mr. Hartley would be worried."
He smiled at me as he replaced his watch. "Yes, I guess you're right; it will have to wait until some other time." He patted the covers above my lap. "Little Girl," he murmured, rather too tenderly. I was glad I could not see his eyes. The car shot ahead. For the next half hour I had a bewildering sense of flying over the snow-clad earth, coming now and then in contact with it as the car struck a rut. The lights, striking against the stalactited branches of the trees and foliage, scintillated like the tiara of a comic-opera star--or the Diamond Horseshoe on society night at the Metropolitan.
We were the last ones to arrive at the country club where we were to dine. This time the doctor dropped me at the door. Someone was drumming the piano as I came in. By the time I had taken off my wraps the doctor joined me. There was a general noisy greeting when we entered the great hall. Nearly all of the women I had met before. "I thought the doctor had smashed you up," one of them said. "Or punctured a tire and gone back to town," another added, giving the doctor a broad wink.
"Leila's gone back to town to get Mr. Hartley," volunteered someone else. (Leila was Mrs. Pease.)
I settled myself in a niche of the chimney-seat, hoping to thaw out eventually. I was chilled to the very depths of my being, and it was not altogether physical. There were lots and lots of cocktails before dinner. Judging from the spirits of the company there had been a few before we arrived. When I heard that Mrs. Pease herself was driving the car in which she had gone to fetch Will, I had visions of his being dumped into a snow-bank or of colliding with a trolley. It seemed an interminable time until they appeared. We had reached the entrée. There was a noisy greeting and a round of sallies.
"We thought you'd eloped or got locked up for speeding!"
"Stopped on the road, I'll bet," said the doctor, who had risen and grasped Will's hand. Will waved to me across the table.
"O, you actor!" came from the woman at my right but one. I recognized the person who had reproved Will after the supper at the College Inn on the opening night.