Then he struck a match and applied
it, Leslie watching him with moody eyes.
"How do you like the portrait, old man?" he inquired between
punctuating puffs.
"It's bully. Sargent never did anything finer. Ripping."
"I owe it all to you, Les."
"To me?"
"You induced her to sit to me."
"So I did," said Leslie sourly. "I was Mr. Fix-it sure enough."
He allowed a short interval to elapse before taking the plunge. "I
suppose, old chap, if I should happen to need your valuable services
as best man in the near future, you'd not disappoint me?"
Booth eyed him quizzically. "I trust you're not throwing yourself
away, Les," he said drily. "I mean to say, on some one--well, some
one not quite up to the mark."
Leslie regarded him with some severity. "Of course not, old chap.
What the devil put that into your head?"
"I thought that possibly you'd been making a chump of yourself up
in the Maine woods."
"Piffle! Don't be an ass. What's the sense pretending you don't
know who she is?"
"I suppose it's Hetty Castleton," said Booth, puffing away at his
pipe.
"Who else?"
"Think she'll have you, old man?" asked Booth, after a moment.
"I don't know," replied the other, a bit dashed. "You might wish
me luck, though."
Booth knocked the burnt tobacco from the bowl of his pipe. A serious
line appeared between his eyes.
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