"He has put it off!" This, without any preliminaries, was her direct and
stimulating news.

I never was more grateful for the solitude of the Exchange, where I had,
before this, noted and blessed an absence of lunch customers as
prevailing as the trade winds; the people I saw there came to talk, not
to purchase. Well, I was certainly henceforth coming for both!

I eagerly plunged in with the obvious question:--

"Indefinitely?"

"Oh, no! Only Wednesday week."

"But will it keep?"

My ignorance diverted her. "Lady Baltimore? Why, the idea!" And she
laughed at me from the immense distance that the South is from the North.

"Then he'll have to pay for two?"

"Oh, no! I wasn't going to make it till Tuesday.

"I didn't suppose that kind of thing would keep," I muttered rather
vaguely.

Her young spirits bubbled over. "Which kind of thing? The wedding--or the
cake?"