“Maida!” cried Jeffrey, the word seeming wrung from him against his will.
“Forgive me, if I do not reply,” said Stone, with an earnest glance at the questioner. “But I’d like to talk to Miss Wheeler. Will you go for her, Mr. Allen?”
“I’d—I’d rather not—you see——”
“Yes, I see,” said Stone, kindly. “You go, Fibs.”
“I’ll go,” offered Genevieve, with the result that she and McGuire flew out of the room at the same time.
“All right, Beauteous One, we’ll both go,” Fibsy said, as they went along the hall side by side. “Where is the lady?”
“Donno; but we’ll find her. I say, Terence, come down on the veranda just a minute, first.”
Leading him to a far corner, where there was no danger of eavesdroppers, Genevieve made another attempt to gain an ally for her own cause.
“I say,” she began, “you have a lot of influence with your Mr. Stone, don’t you?”
“Oh, heaps!” and Fibsy’s sweeping gesture indicated a wide expanse of imagination, at least.