“Sorry,” said Bob. “I didn’t know you were behind the bushes or I wouldn’t have come out on you like that. But maybe you’ll do even better than you were going to. Hope so! Go ahead with your drive. Don’t mind me.” His tone was depressed, if not sepulchral. But the lady, being at that sociable age, showed now a perverse disposition not to “go ahead.” “Just get here?” she asked. “Yes. Anything doing?” “Not much. It’s been, in fact, rather slow. Mrs. Ralston says so herself. So I am at liberty to make the same remark. Of course we’ve done the usual things, but somehow there seems to be something lacking,” rattled on the lady. “Maybe we need a few more convivial souls to stir things up. Perhaps we’re waiting for some one, real good and lively, to appear upon the scene. Does the description chance to fit you, Mr. Bennett?” Archly. “I think not,” said gloomy Bob. “Well, that isn’t what Mrs. Ralston says about you, anyway,” observed the commodore’s spouse. “What does she say?” “‘When Bob Bennett’s around, things begin to hum.’ So you see you have a reputation to live up to.” “I dare say. No doubt I’ll live up to it, all right.” “It’s really up to you to stir things up.” “I’ve begun.” Ominously. “Have you? How lovely!” This didn’t require an answer, for it wasn’t really a question. A white ball went by them, a very pretty snoop, and pretty soon another lady and a caddy loomed on their range of vision. The lady was thin and spirituelle and she walked by with a stride. You would have said she had taken lessons of a man. She looked neither to the right nor the left. At the moment, she, at any rate, was not sociably inclined. That walk meant business. She wasn’t one of those fussy beginners like the lady Bob was talking with. “Isn’t that Mrs. Clarence Van Duzen?” asked Bob. “Yes. She, too, poor dear, has had to desert hubby. Exactions of business! Clarence simply couldn’t get away. You see he’s director of so many things. And poor, dear old Dan! So busy! Every day at the office! So pressed with business.” “Quite so,” said Bob absently. “I mean—” He stopped. He knew Dan wasn’t pressed for business and Bob couldn’t utter even the suspicion of an untruth now. “Didn’t exactly mean that!” he mumbled. The lady regarded him quickly. His manner was just in the least strange. But in a moment she thought no more about it. “You didn’t happen to see Dan?” she asked. “Yes.” “At his office, I suppose?” Dan had written he hadn’t even had time for his club; that it had been just work—work all the time. “No.” “Where, then?” “At the club and some other places.” Reluctantly. “Other places?” Lightly. Of course she hadn’t really believed quite all Dan had written about that office confinement. “How dreadfully ambiguous!” With a laugh. “What other places?” Bob began to get uneasy. “Well, we went to a cabaret or two.” No especial harm about that answer. “Of course,” said the lady. “Why not?”