“Thank you,” Mrs. Richards returned, “but I get off at Sausalito.  I’ve no doubt Miss Robson will be delighted.”

“I think I’d better not,” said Claire.  “Mr. Flint is sending his car to the train for me.  I shouldn’t want to change my program and cause confusion.  But I’d like nothing better!  The air is so bracing!”

“You can excuse me!” put in Mrs. Richards, moving toward the forward deck.  “It’s going to pour in less than ten minutes.  I’m not one of those amphibious creatures who like to get wringing wet just for the fun of it!”

Stillman lifted his hat.  Claire stood for a moment undecided whether to follow Mrs. Richards or remain for a chat with Stillman.

“I’m an awful fool, I suppose,” Stillman smiled at Claire, “bringing the car out on a night like this.  But the truth is Edington promised to catch this boat and I wanted him to try out the new plaything.  I might have known he wouldn’t make it.  We’re running over for dinner with Edington’s sister.”

At this moment the boat crashed clumsily against the Sausalito ferry-slip, and in the sudden confusion of landing Claire was swept along without further ado.

She looked back.  Stillman waved a genial good-by to her.  She felt glad that he was behind her, in a vague, impersonal, thoroughly inexplainable way.

CHAPTER VI

Claire was disappointed that Mrs. Flint was not to be at home.  She had caught glimpses of her now and then coming into the office and she was interested in the hope of seeing her at closer range.  Mrs. Flint was a rather frumpish individual, who always gave the impression of pieced-out dressmaking.

“She must subscribe to the Ladies’ Home Journal,” Nellie Whitehead had commented one day.  “You know that ’go-up-into-the-ga
rret-and-get-five-yards-of-grandmother’s-wedding-gown’ column.  Well, she’s a walking ad for it.  She’s no raving beauty, but if she would throw out her chest and chuck those flat-heeled clogs of hers, and put a marcel wave in her hair, maybe the old man would sit up and take notice.”

To which Miss Munch had replied: 

“Well, she’s a mighty sweet woman, anyway!” in a tone calculated to freeze the irrepressible Nellie Whitehead into silence.

“Who says she isn’t?  And at that, a good tailor-made suit and a decent-looking hat won’t spoil her disposition any....”

The children, too, were what Nellie Whitehead had termed “perfect guys.”  On warm days Mrs. Flint would drag these two daughters of hers into the office, dressed in plaid suits and velveteen hats; and when a cold north wind blew it seemed inevitable that they would appear in gay and airy costumes up to their knees, with impossible straw bonnets trimmed with daisies and faded cornflowers, reminiscent of the white-leghorn-hat era.

“Men don’t marry women for their clothes,” Miss Munch used to say, challengingly, to Nellie.