Some Buried Caesar

"He sure would." I was wondering which would be more satisfactory, to slap her and then kiss her, or to kiss her and then slap her. "Did Clyde attract you much?"

"He did for a while." She shivered delicately. "You know how tiresome it is when someone you found exciting gets to be nothing but a nuisance? He wanted me to marry him, too. You mustn't think I'm heartless, because I'm not. Caroline would have been a swell wife for him, and I told him so. I rather thought they would make it up, and I hoped they would, and that's why I said he would have been more apt to come to see Caroline than me last night." "Maybe he did. Have you asked her?" "Good lord no. Me ask Caroline anything about Clyde? I wouldn't dare mention his name to her. She hates me." "She invited you up for the barbecue, didn't she?" "Yes, but that was because she was being clever. Her brother Jimmy and I were beginning to be friendly, and she thought if he saw me out here in the country, a lot of me, he would realize how superficial and unhealthy I am." "Oh. So you're unhealthy?"

"Terribly." The comer of her mouth went up another sixteenth of an inch. "Because I'm frank and simple. Because I never offer anything I don't give, and I never give any- thing and then expect to get paid for it. I'm frightfully un- healthy. But I guess I was wrong to say superficial. I doubt if Caroline thinks I'm superficial."

"Excuse me a minute," I said, and stood up. Even in the midst of being ruined I had had Wolfe's table across the tent in the corner of my eye, partly to note his reaction to the fricassee, which had appeared to be satis- factory since he had ordered a second portion, and my in- terrupting my despoiler was on account of a sign from him. A man was standing by Wolfe's chair talking to him, and Wolfe had glanced in my direction with a lift to his brow which I considered significant. So I excused myself to Lily and got up and ambled over. As I arrived the man turned his head and I saw it was Lew Bennett, the secretary of the National Guernsey League.

"Archie, I must thank you." Wolfe put his napkin down. "For suggesting the fricassee. It is superb. Only female Americans can make good dumplings, and not many of them."

"Yes, sir."

"You have met Mr. Bennett."

"Yes, sir."

"Can you conveniently extricate yourself from that…" He turned a thumb in the direction I had come from.

"You mean right now?"