Allen?"
"He registers from Boston, and only came a fortnight ago," I replied
vaguely.
"He doesn't look quite right; as though he had been set down on the wrong
planet, you know," said Mrs. Cooke, her finger on her temple. "What is
he like?"
"Well," I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration, "he
would do splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having one."
"So you do not dance, Mr. Crocker?"
I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity.
"No, I do not," said I.
"I thought not," she said, laughing. It must have been my expression
which prompted her next remark.
"I was not making fun of you," she said, more soberly; "I do not like Mr.
Allen any better than you do, and I have only seen him once."
"But I have not said I did not like him," I objected.
"Of course not," said Mrs. Cooke, quizzically.
At that moment, to my relief, I discerned the Celebrity and Mr. Cooke in
the hallway.
"Here they come, now," she went on. "I do wish Fenelon would keep his
hands off the people he meets. I can feel he is going to make an
intimate of that man. Mark my words, Mr. Crocker."
I not only marked them, I prayed for their fulfilment.
There was that in Mr. Cooke which, for want of a better name, I will call
instinct. As he came down the steps, his arm linked in that of the
Celebrity, his attitude towards his wife was both apologetic and defiant.
He had at once the air of a child caught with a forbidden toy, and that
of a stripling of twenty-one who flaunts a cigar in his father's face.
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