"
The conversation then wandered off to Eleanor, and Quin listened with
vague misgivings to accounts of her good times--yachting parties, tennis
tournaments, rock teas, shore dinners--all of which suggested to him an
appallingly unfamiliar world.
"I tell you who was up there for a week," said Mr. Ranny. "Harold Phipps.
You remember meeting him at our apartment last spring?"
"What's he doing there?" Quin demanded with such vehemence that they both
laughed.
"Probably making life miserable for Mother Bartlett," said Mrs. Ranny. "I
can't imagine how she ever consented to have him come, or how he ever had
the nerve to go, after the way they've treated him."
"Harold's not concerned with the feelings of the family," said Mr. Ranny;
"he is after Nell."
But Mrs. Ranny scorned the idea. "He looks upon her as a perfect child,"
she insisted; "besides, he's too lazy and conceited to be in love with
anybody but himself."
"That may be, but Nell's got him going all right."
Then the conversation veered back to the Martels, with the result that an
hour later Quin was on his way home bearing a gracefully worded note from
Mrs. Ranny inviting the children to spend the following week at Valley
Mead.
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