Although not a member, McLean was a sort of honorary
habitue, being allowed the privilege of the club in exchange for
a dependable willingness to play at entertainments of all sorts.
It was in Peter's mind to enlist McLean's assistance in his
difficulties. McLean knew a good many people. He was popular,
goodlooking, and in a colony where, unlike London and Paris, the
great majority were people of moderate means, he was
conspicuously well off. But he was also much younger than Peter
and intolerant with the insolence of youth. Peter was thinking
hard as he took off his overcoat and ordered beer.
The boy was in love with Harmony already; Peter had seen that, as
he saw many things. How far his love might carry him, Peter had
no idea. It seemed to him, as he sat across the reading-table and
studied him over his magazine, that McLean would resent bitterly
the girl's position, and that when he learned it a crisis might
be precipitated.
One of three things might happen: He might bend all his energies
to second Peter's effort to fill Anna's place, to find the right
person; he might suggest taking Anna's place himself, and insist
that his presence in the apartment would be as justifiable as
Peter's; or he might do at once the thing Peter felt he would do
eventually, cut the knot of the difficulty by asking Harmony to
marry him. Peter, greeting him pleasantly, decided not to tell
him anything, to keep him away if possible until the thing was
straightened out, and to wait for an hour at the club in the hope
that a solution might stroll in for chocolate and gossip.
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