Chapter 9 - Page 2

had shown something of a conversible spirit;
he had come twice to the hotel since his son's departure and had said,
smiling and reproachful, "You neglect us, you neglect us, my dear sir!"
The good man had not understood what was meant by this till Delia
explained after the visitor had withdrawn, and even then the remedy for
the neglect, administered two or three days later, had not borne any
copious fruit. Mr. Dosson called alone, instructed by his daughter, in
the Cours la Reine, but Mr. Probert was not at home. He only left a card
on which Delia had superscribed in advance, almost with the legibility
of print, the words "So sorry!" Her father had told her he would give in
the card if she wanted, but would have nothing to do with the writing.
There was a discussion as to whether Mr. Probert's remark was an
allusion to a deficiency of politeness on the article of his sons-in-
law. Oughtn't Mr. Dosson perhaps to call personally, and not simply
through the medium of the visits paid by his daughters to their wives,
on Messieurs de Brecourt and de Cliche? Once when this subject came up
in George Flack's presence the old man said he would go round if Mr.
Flack would accompany him. "All right, we'll go right along!" Mr. Flack
had responded, and this nspiration had become a living fact qualified
only by the "mercy," to Delia Dosson, that the other two gentlemen were
not at home. "Suppose they SHOULD get in?" she had said lugubriously to
her sister.

"Well, what if they do?" Francie had asked.

"Why the count and the marquis won't be interested in Mr. Flack."

"Well then perhaps he'll be interested in them. He can write something
about them. They'll like that"

"Do you think they would?" Delia had solemnly weighed it.

"Why, yes, if he should say fine things."

"They do like fine things," Delia had conceded. "They get off so many
themselves. Only the way Mr. Flack does it's a different style."

"Well, people like to be praised in any style."

"That's so," Delia had continued to brood.

One afternoon, coming in about three o'clock, Mr. Flack found Francie
alone. She had expressed a wish after luncheon for a couple of hours of
independence: intending to write to Gaston, and having accidentally
missed a post, she had determined her letter should be of double its
usual length. Her companions had respected her claim for solitude, Mr.
Dosson taking himself off to his daily session in the reading-room of
the American bank and Delia--the girls had now at their command a landau
as massive as the coach of an ambassador--driving away to the
dressmaker's, a