She dropped her crochet to her lap and stared squarely at Carl. Her warning that he would do exceedingly well to go home was more than plain. He stared back, agitated but not surrendering. Deliberately, almost suavely, with ten years of experience added to the sixteen years that he had brought into the room, he said:
"I'll see if they'd like to play." He sauntered to the other end of the room, abashed before the mystic woman, and ventured: "I saw Ray, to-day.... I got to be going, pretty quick, but I was wondering if you two felt like playing some crokinole?"
Gertie said, slowly: "I'd like to, Carl, but----Unless you'd like to play, doctor?"
"Why of course it's _comme il faut_ to play, Miss Cowles, but I was just hoping to have the pleasure of hearing you make some more of your delectable music," bowed the dentist, and Gertie bowed back; and their smiles joined in a glittery bridge of social aplomb.
"Oh yes," from Carl, "that--yes, do----But you hadn't ought to play too much if you haven't been well."
"Oh, Carl!" shrieked Gertie. "'Ought not to,' not 'hadn't ought to'!"
"'Ought not to,'" repeated Mrs. Cowles, icily, while the dentist waved his hand in an amused manner and contributed:
"Ought not to say 'hadn't ought to,' as my preceptor used to tell me.... I'd like to hear you sing Longfellow's 'Psalm of Life,' Miss Cowles."
"Don't you think Longfellow's a bum poet?" growled Carl. "Bone Stillman says Longfellow's the grind-organ of poetry. Like this: 'Life is re-al, life is ear-nest, tum te diddle dydle dum!'"
"Carl," ordered Mrs. Cowles, "you will please to never mention that Stillman person in my house!"
"Oh, Carl!" rebuked Gertie. She rose from the piano-stool. Her essence of virginal femininity, its pure and cloistered and white-camisoled odor, bespelled Carl to fainting timidity. And while he was thus defenseless the dentist thrust:
"Why, they tell me Stillman doesn't even believe the Bible!"
Carl was not to retrieve his credit with Gertie, but he couldn't betray Bone Stillman. Hastily: "Yes, maybe, that way----Oh, say, doctor, Pete Jordan was telling me" (liar!) "that you were one of the best tennis-players at the U."
The dentist coyly fluffed his hair and deprecated, "Oh no, I wouldn't say that!"