and Evelyn and Connie. It was to this "Mr. Gratton" that she turned,
having made a piquant face at the dejected college youth.

"_You_ will like him immensely, I know," she said, while the ears of
poor Archie reddened even as he was being led away by the not very
pretty but extremely comforting Georgia. "He's a real man, every inch of
him." ["Every inch a King!" she thought quickly, unashamed of the pun.]
"A big man who does big things in a big way," she ran on, indicating
that she, too, after that brief meeting had been lured into
superlatives.

"Mr. Gratton," smiled urbanely. For his own part he might have been
called every inch a concrete expression of suavity. He was clad in the
conventional city-dweller's "outdoor rig." Shining puttees lying bravely
about the shape of his leg; brown outing breeches, creased, laced at
their abbreviated ends; shirt of the sport effect; a shrewd-eyed man of
thirty-five with ambitions, a chalky complexion, and a very weak mouth
with full red lips.

"Miss Gloria," he whispered as he managed to have her all to himself a
moment, "you'll make me jealous."

She was used to him saying stupid things. Yet she laughed and seemed
pleased. Gratton egotistically supposed her thought was of him; King
would have been amazed to know that she was already watching the house
for his coming. And he would have been no end amazed and bristling with
defence had he glimpsed the astonishing fact that Gloria already fully
and clearly meant to parade him before her summer friends as her latest
and most virile admirer. Gratton's heavy-lidded pale eyes trailed over
her speculatively.