The Last Woman

Sally sprang to her feet, clapped her hands and laughed, to her husband's utter amazement.

"Splendid!" she exclaimed. "No, I did not know that; but it simplifies matters, wonderfully, Jack."

"Oh, does it?"

"Assuredly."

"Huh! I'm glad you think so. It looks to me as if it were just the other way around. Take my word for it, my girl, there'll be a 'will' in that drive of yours--maybe a tragedy, as well. Duncan is quite capable of committing one, in his present mood; and Dick Morton?--Well, you'll see."

"I'm awfully glad you told me. It's perfectly splendid," said Sally, unmindful of, or indifferent to, the warning. "It's perfectly splendid!"

"Oh, it is, eh? Well, I'm glad you think so. To me, it looks a good deal like a mix-up, Sally. Rod is in love with Patricia; Beatrice is in love with him; Nesbit Farnham is so dead stuck on Beatrice that he doesn't know where he's at, more than half the time; and Patricia--Oh, well, I give it up. I'll do what you told me to, and leave the rest to you;" and Gardner laughed his way through the hall and out upon the street; and he continued chuckling to himself, all the way to his club. But Sally ran after him before he got quite away from her, and called to him from the bottom of the steps.

"One thing more, Jack," she said.

"Well, my dear; what is it?"

"We will take Beatrice with us, in our car, and you may include one of the gentlemen I have given you permission to ask. When you ask Dick Morton, tell him that he is to bring Patricia and the two Houston girls. That's all."

"How about the others, how are they going to get there?"

"The others may walk, for all I care," said Sally, and she returned to the library.