“Then we must hurry if we are to stop it,” she said in a dramatic whisper.
“Stop it––stop what?” The heir of Old Grim Barnes had launched the belief that he was about to start something. There wasn’t any stop in the vocabulary of his thoughts at that minute.
“Why, the elopement!” ejaculated Sadie, exploding a little bomb that brought Whitney Barnes down out of the clouds.
“Yes, of course––to be sure––the elopement––I’d forgotten,” he raced on. “Let me look at you. No, you must not turn away. I must look at you––that’s the only way I can help you.”
If he had to take a hand in the business of preventing an elopement he was going to combine that business with pleasure.
“You are sure you want me to help you?” he asked.
“Yes, so awfully much!” she cried.
“Then I must look at you––look at you very closely,” he said, with the utmost seriousness.
“I don’t understand,” murmured Sadie, both pleased and frightened by his intense scrutiny.