Oliver jumped up with suspicious alacrity. "Oh, love, love, love!" crooned
Peter. "Oh, love, love, love!" Oliver flushed. "Don't swipe all my butter,
you simple cynic!" He knew what it was, of course.

"This is Oliver Crowe talking. Will you give me the telegram?"

Nancy and Oliver, finding Sunday mails of a dilatory unsatisfactoriness,
had made a compact to use the wire on that day instead. And even now Oliver
never listened to the mechanical buzz of Central's voice in his ear without
a little pulse of the heart. It seemed to bring Nancy nearer than letters
could, somehow. Nancy had an imperial contempt for boiling down attractive
sentences to the necessary ten or twenty words. This time, though, the
telegram was short.

"Mr. Oliver Crowe, care Peter Piper, Southampton," clicked Central
dispassionately. "I hate St. Louis. I would give anything in the world if
we could only see each other for twenty-four hours. Love. Signed, Nancy."

And Oliver, after hanging up the receiver, went back to the dining-room
with worry barking and running around his mind like a spoiled puppy,
wondering savagely why so many rocking-chair people took a _crepey_
pleasure in saying it was good for young people in love to have to wait.




XI

Tea for two at the Gondolier, that newest and quotation-marked "Quaintest"