"You'll come to us then, won't you?" she asked, but quite without
conviction. She knew what he'd say.

"Heavens, no! Oh, I'll go to a hotel for a while--maybe look up a
little down-town apartment, with a Jap. It doesn't matter much about
that. It's a load off, all right."

"Is that," she asked, "why you've been looking so sort of--gay, all the
evening--as if you were licking the last of the canary's feathers off
your whiskers?"

"Perhaps so," he said. "It's been a pretty good day, take it all round."

She got up from the couch, shook herself down into her clothes a little,
and came over to him.

"All right, since it's been a good day, let's go to bed." She put her
hands upon his shoulders. "You're rather dreadful," she said, "but
you're a dear. You don't bite my head off when I urge you to get
married, though I know you want to. But you will some day--I don't mean
bite my head off--won't you, Rod?"

"When I see any prospect of being as lucky as Martin--find a girl who
won't mind when I turn up for dinner looking like a drowned tramp, or
kick her plans to bits, after she's tipped me off as to what she wants
me to do ..."

Frederica took her hands off, stepped back and looked at him. There was
an ironical sort of smile on her lips.