“The kiddies?” he asked, stopping short.
I stared at him closely as I shook my head in answer to that question. He looked leaner and frailer and less robustious than of old. But in my heart of hearts I liked him that way. It left him the helpless and unprotesting victim of that run-over maternal instinct of mine which took wayward joy in mothering what it couldn’t master. It had brought him a little closer to me. But that contact, I remembered, was perhaps to be only something of the moment.
“Dinky-Dunk,” I told him as quietly as I could, “I want you to go down to San Diego and see Lady Allie.”
It was a less surprised look than a barricaded one that came into his eyes.
“Why?” he asked as he slowly seated himself across the table from me.
“Because I think she needs you,” I found the courage to tell him.
“Why?” he asked still again.
“There has been an accident,” I told him.
“What sort of accident?” he quickly inquired, with one hand arrested as he went to shake out his table-napkin.
“It was an air-ship accident. And Lady Allie’s been hurt.”