“Nina coming down?” he asked.

“I suppose so.  Why?”

“You couldn’t pass the word along that you are going to be engaged for the next half hour?”

“I might, but I certainly don’t intend to.”

“You are as hard to isolate as a—­as a germ,” he complained.  “I gave up a perfectly good golf game to see you, and as your father generally calls the dog the moment I appear and goes for a walk, I thought I might see you alone.”

“You’re seeing me alone now, you know.”

Suddenly he leaned over and catching up her hand, kissed it.

“You’re so cool and sweet,” he said.  “I—­I wish you liked me a little.”  He smiled up at her, rather wistfully.  “I never knew any one quite like you.”

She drew her hand away.  Something Nina had said, that he knew his way about, came into her mind, and made her uncomfortable.  Back of him, suddenly, was that strange and mysterious region where men of his sort lived their furtive man-life, where they knew their way about.  She had no curiosity and no interest, but the mere fact of its existence as revealed by Nina repelled her.

“There are plenty like me,” she said.  “Don’t be silly, Wallie.  I hate having my hand kissed.”

“I wonder,” he observed shrewdly, “whether that’s really true, or whether you just hate having me do it?”

When Nina came in he was drawing a rough sketch of his new power boat, being built in Florida.

Nina’s delay was explained by the appearance, a few minutes later, of a rather sullen Annie with a tea tray.  Afternoon tea was not a Wheeler institution, but was notoriously a Sayre one.  And Nina believed in putting one’s best foot foremost, even when that resulted in a state of unstable domestic equilibrium.

“Put in a word for me, Nina,” Wallie begged.  “I intend to ask Elizabeth to go to the theater this week, and I think she is going to refuse.”

“What’s the play?” Nina inquired negligently.  She was privately determining that her mother needed a tea cart and a new tea service.  There were some in old Georgian silver—­

“‘The Valley.’  Not that the play matters.  It’s Beverly Carlysle.”

“I thought she was dead, or something.”

“Or something is right.  She retired years ago, at the top of her success.  She was a howling beauty, I’m told.  I never saw her.  There was some queer story.  I’ve forgotten it.  I was a kid then.  How about it, Elizabeth?”

“I’m sorry.  I’m going Wednesday night.”

He looked downcast over that, and he was curious, too.  But he made no comment save: 

“Well, better luck next time.”

“Just imagine,” said Nina.  “She’s going with Dick Livingstone.  Can you imagine it?”

But Wallace Sayre could and did.  He had rather a stricken moment, too.  Of course, there might be nothing to it; but on the other hand, there very well might.  And Livingstone was the sort to attract the feminine woman; he had gravity and responsibility.  He was older too, and that flattered a girl.