II

II

“Good evening,” her father was saying to her at that moment in syllables faintly slurred. “This seems to be getting to be a habit.”

They were standing near a side stairs, and over his shoulder through a glass door Yanci could see a party of half a dozen men sitting in familiar joviality about a round table.

“Don’t you want to come out and watch for awhile?” she suggested, smiling and affecting a casualness she did not feel.

“Not tonight, thanks.”

Her father’s dignity was a bit too emphasized to be convincing.

“Just come out and take a look,” she urged him. “Everybody’s here, and I want to ask you what you think of somebody.”

This was not so good, but it was the best that occurred to her.

“I doubt very strongly if I’d find anything to interest me out there,” said Tom Bowman emphatically. “I obse……