“The porter’ll post ’em,” she said. “That’ll satisfy your Cousin Delia and my Aunt Edie—and we’ve simply got to get out of writing them any more letters, somehow.”
Then the black porter hammered at the door, and Jacqueline bade him enter, and in her lordly manner permitted him to brush her off.
“Ain’ yo’ done mix yo’ clothes up, Missy?” he asked with interest.
Caroline quaked. Jacqueline merely dimpled.
“Of course we have,” she said. “We’re going to put something over on our relations. You see, I know her folks just like she knows mine.”
(Which was true in the letter, but not in the spirit. Jacqueline might as well have told a fib and been done with it.)
The porter seemed to hesitate.
“It will be all right,” Jacqueline told him loftily. “Here’s something for you. Take off that young lady and her luggage as soon as the train stops. I’ll look out for myself.”
So sure of herself she was that the porter, like Caroline, was put to silence. He pocketed the money that she gave him, chuckled, muttered that she was “de beatermost,” and went his way.
“We’ll be there in five minutes now,” said Jacqueline. “Put on this hat. Here, give me yours. Take the books. Give me the doll.”