"It might be a good idea," said Bill reflectively.
"Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do," said Lucille. "I'm going to get Bill to introduce me to his Mabel, and, if she's as nice as he says she is, I'll go to father and talk convincingly to him."
"You're an ace!" said Bill.
"Absolutely!" agreed Archie cordially. "My partner, what! All the same, we ought to keep the book as a second string, you know. I mean to say, you are a young and delicately nurtured girl—full of sensibility and shrinking what's-its-name and all that—and you know what the jolly old pater is. He might bark at you and put you out of action in the first round. Well, then, if anything like that happened, don't you see, we could unleash old Bill, the trained silver-tongued expert, and let him have a shot. Personally, I'm all for the P. that W.'s."
"Me, too," said Bill.
Lucille looked at her watch.
"Good gracious! It's nearly one o'clock!"
"No!" Archie heaved himself up from his chair. "Well, it's a shame to break up this feast of reason and flow of soul and all that, but, if we don't leg it with some speed, we shall be late."
"We're lunching at the Nicholson's!" explained Lucille to her brother. "I wish you were coming too."
"Lunch!" Bill shook his head with a kind of tolerant scorn. "Lunch means nothing to me these days. I've other things to think of besides food." He looked as spiritual as his rugged features would permit. "I haven't written to Her yet to-day."
"But, dash it, old scream, if she's going to be over here
