III
VERYBODY meets in Aiken, Gordon had declared. And the next morning he set out to prove it so. White-flanneled, he hurried over to the golf club. There were plenty there who would have stayed his anxious search. The Golden Widow—they called Mrs. Burke-Parrish that to distinguish her from a brunette widow—barred his way with a silken sunshade.
"I'm looking for a friend," he explained.
"Won't I do?" asked Mrs. Hampton.
"Not as a friend, Fair Lady," he answered, catching sight of a face on the porch that might be Hers and longing to be off. "Hello, Pete."
"Tell us about her," said Peter Waring, hooking the handle of his stick about Gordon's ankle.
"Her?" asked the victim. "Who?"
"The friend you're looking for, of course. What's she like, old man?"
24