“No, but Walker will find him and have him here in no time at all,” Alice replied quietly and confidently.
She had hardly finished the sentence, when those in the room heard the firm tread of Adair MacKenzie in the hall and heard his voice boom out, “Porter, porter, come here, and take these bags.”
It was good to hear him, good to hear his decisiveness. Everyone in the room felt better as soon as he opened the door.
“Here, here, what’s all this?” He looked at Rhoda’s red eyes. “Come, girl, buck up,” he patted her roughly on the shoulder. “Ready, are you?”
“You’re going by plane. It leaves in fifteen minutes and there’s a taxi waiting downstairs. That red-headed girl, what’s her name, got you a compartment in a train, but we’ve cancelled that.
“Now, that good-for-nothing newspaper friend of my daughter’s is downstairs putting through a long distance call so that you can talk to your father before you leave here.
“You can tell him that this is a private plane and that it will practically drop you in your own back yard. Do they have back yards where you come from?”
Rhoda nodded. How good everyone was being to her.
“Now, now, don’t thank me,” Adair MacKenzie forestalled her thanks. “Help a nice girl like you out any time I can. Ready? You better go downstairs. You’ve just got time to talk to your father before you make the plane. You’ll find everything comfortable there.
“Come, you, Nan,” he motioned to his cousin, “You’re the only one that can come along with us. Don’t want a lot of fuss. See the rest of you later.” With this, he hurried Nan and Rhoda out of the room and down the elevator so quickly that Rhoda, in doing things, got control of herself, just as Adair MacKenzie had known she would.