It was not to be denied that young Mrs. Propbridge felt distinctly disappointed. The start of the little adventure had had promise in it. She had forecast all manner of agreeable contingencies as the probable outcome.
For some reason, though, or perhaps for no definite reason at all, she said nothing to her husband, on his return from Toledo, of her encounter with the agreeable Mr. Murrill. Anyway, he arrived in no very affable state of mind. As a matter of fact he was most terrifically out of temper. Somebody or other--presumably some ass of a practical joker, he figured, or possibly a person with a grudge against him who had curious methods of taking vengeance--had lured him into taking a hot, dusty, tiresome and entirely useless trip. There was no business conference on out at Toledo; no need for his presence there. If he could lay hands on the idiot who had sent him that forged telegram--well, the angered Mr. Propbridge indicated with a gesture of a large and knobby fist what he would do to the aforesaid idiot.
The next time Mr. Propbridge was haled to the broiling Corn Belt he made very sure that the warrant was genuine. One of these wild-goose chases a summer was quite enough for a man with a size-nineteen collar and a forty-six-inch waistband.
The next time befell some ten days after the Propbridges returned from the shore to their thirty-thousand-dollars-a-year apartment on Upper Park Avenue. The very fact that they did live in an apartment and that they did spend a good part of their time there would stamp them for what they were--persons not yet to be included among the really fashionable group. The really fashionable maintained large homes which they occupied when they came to town to have dental work done or to launch a débutante daughter into society; the rest of the year they usually were elsewhere. It was the thing.
Business of importance sent Mr. Propbridge to Detroit, and then on to Chicago and Des Moines. On a certain afternoon he caught the Wolverine Limited. Almost before his train had passed One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street Mrs. Propbridge had a caller. She was informed that a member of the staff of that live paper, People You Know, desired to see her for a few minutes. Persons of social consequence or persons who craved to be of social consequence did not often deny themselves to representatives of People You Know. Mrs. Propbridge told the switchboard girl downstairs to tell the hallman to invite the gentleman to come up.