"You may be a wonderful man," said Grace to H. R., "but all my friends would ask me if I am going to have a mammoth sandwich instead of a wedding-cake! I ask you not to persist--"
H. R. smiled sympathetically and said: "You poor darling! Is _that_ all you are afraid of?"
She thought of Philadelphia and a quiet life, and she shook her head sadly. Why couldn't he have made her famous by unobjectionable methods.
But H. R. said, "I'll guarantee that my name will never again be associated with sandwiches--"
"You can't do it!" declared Grace, with conviction, thinking of humorous American girls. "When they are friends all you have to do is to take out the 'r' to turn them into fiends."
Mrs. Goodchild said nothing, but frowned. It had just occurred to her that here they all were, amicably talking with the man who had made their lives grievous burdens. Mr. Goodchild also was silent, but shrewdly eyed H. R.
"I'll do it!" repeated H. R., confidently.
"How can you without killing everybody?" challenged Grace, skeptically. "Everybody knows you as the leader of the sandwich men, and if you form companies--"
"My child," H. R. told her, gently, "I don't know anything about finance. That is why I want to get father's advice about my business. Every man to his trade. But I do know New York. I ought to, hang it! My grandfather owned what is now the Hôtel Regina, and-- Well, look here! If by the first of June nobody even remembers that I had anything to do with sandwiches will you marry me?"
If H. R. could do that he was fit to be anybody's son-in-law. If he couldn't, the annoyance would end.
"I'm willing to take a chance for two weeks," said Mr. Goodchild, feeling certain he was displaying Machiavellian wisdom. But Grace shook her head.
"Everything you've done," she told H. R., "is child's play--"
"What!" interrupted H. R., indignantly. "Make New-Yorkers give money for charity that they might have spent for their own pleasure?"
"Nothing alongside of making 'em forget that you invented sandwiches. If it had been anything else, you might--I might--you--" She floundered helplessly. Her life for weeks had been so full of excitement that she could not co-ordinate her ideas quickly.
"You don't know me, dear," said H. R. "I hate to say it myself, but, really, I'm a wonder!"