"Thanks, old man." Buckton puffed his smoke into the still moonlight. "It certainly was a lift to me. I was never cut out for business, and I was at the end of my row. I confess I am not complaining now. I am just at the age to know how to spend money."
The talk languished. Both men seemed suddenly burthened by obtrusive self-consciousness. Buckton twisted his mustache nervously and flicked at the ashless tip of his cigar, glancing toward the house. "Oh, I quite forgot to deliver Miss Kitty's message to Irene--to Mrs. Mostyn, I should say. She was to drive out with us, but at the last minute Dr. Regan found that he could get off and asked her to go in his car."
"Arranged between them," Mostyn thought, darkly. "I know the trick. Regan doesn't care a rap for Kitty. It is part of the game, and I am the tool."
"I understand you have a new car yourself," Mostyn said, aloud.
"Yes, and experts tell me that it is the best in town. I'll run around and take you out some day. But I really care more for horses. It may be due to my Virginia blood. I wouldn't swap this pair for all the cars in town. For a trip like this to-night horses come handy. There are some rough places between here and my home."
"It does away with the chauffeur," Mostyn said, inwardly, as his tongue lay dead in his mouth. He glanced toward the open doorway. "Irene may be ready," he remarked, moving toward the house.
"Yes, I see her coming down the stairs," answered Buckton, dropping his cigar, a look of boyish eagerness capturing his face. "I'll run on and help her with her wraps. So long, old man."
Mostyn made some inarticulate response of no import in particular, and dropped back, allowing Buckton to stride on to the veranda, his hat jauntily swinging at his side. Irene was now in the doorway, poised like a picture in a frame.
Slinking farther away beneath the trees and behind shrubbery, Mostyn heard the greetings between the two, and saw them shaking hands, standing face to face. Irene looked so young, so different from the calculating woman who had just asserted her financial and marital rights in her chamber. No wonder that her escort was fascinated when she had so long been withheld from him! Mostyn told himself that he well knew the "stolen-sweets" sensation. He peered above a clump of boxwood like a thief, upon grounds to which he was unaccustomed, and watched them as they got into the trap. Irene's rippling laugh, and Buckton's satisfied response as he tucked the robes about her, seemed things of Satanic design. They were off. The restive pair, with high- reined, arching necks, trotted down the drive to the street, and a moment later were out of sight.