They smoked a while in silence, with a bow, now and then, to some one that passed, or a word about some one that arrived or departed. The piazza was filling up with the late comers, and with those from the grill-room. The tables were being set for dinner--rubber-shod waiters flitted about--the tinkle of glasses and the hiss of siphons punctuated the chatter of the crowd.
"How many are actually enjoying themselves?" said Pendleton with a wave of his hand to include every one on the piazza.
"Possibly half," Burgoyne answered--"the rest are bored to death."
"Half!" Pendleton laughed. "There isn't one in ten who wouldn't rather be somewhere else at this moment."
"Then there are about a hundred and fifty people who are putting up an amazingly good bluff."
"Bluff! What does that signify? Life is made up of bluff. We all are bluffers--it's a game of bluffer and bluffee--with the devil getting the one who is bluffed too often."
"You run to over-statements this afternoon!" Burgoyne remarked. "What is the matter; been pinched in the stock market--has some girl given you the mit--or are you letting some fool doctor tinker at you?"
"It wouldn't be the first, and it couldn't be the second, so it must be the third.--Don't do it, Pendleton! A doctor is the most awful habit a well man can acquire--he never gets over it."
"Go to!" laughed Pendleton; "you're not in the fashion. It is the fad now-a-days to be treated by a specialist."
"A woman's fad, not a man's," said Burgoyne. "It _isn't_ the stock-market, is it?"
"I'm not on the wrong side, if that is what you mean."
"And it couldn't by any chance be a woman?"
"It could but it isn't.--I reckon I'm just naturally cynical."
"Get over it, Pendleton, get over it--it's an awful habit for yourself and those around you! Be cheerful, old man, be cheerful. It's just as easy and a whole heap more enjoyable. Look at me--why, I can----"
"Enjoy the prospect of dining with Mrs. Emerson! that is sufficient."
"Sufficient unto the mother is the daughter thereof. There are always compensations, if we only let ourselves see them."
"What if the daughter isn't there?" Pendleton suggested.
"That would be a calamity," Burgoyne answered. "However, we'll hope for the best."