She put out her hand impulsively with a grateful smile, the sweetest and friendliest he had ever had from her. “I like that, Hanky! And I like you when you show what you really are. But I’m not taking advantage of your generosity.”
“I mean it, Beatrice—in dead, sober earnest—on a cold collar.”
She shook her pretty head smilingly. “Good-by. Come to see me. If we run across each other when father’s about scowl and look the other way.”
“What do you take me for?”
“For a person with a little sense. Keep solid with father—for Allie’s sake.”
“But I want you——”
She fled, laughing as if she had not a care in the world.
She tried to make her departure unobtrusive. But her father would not have it so. Coming toward the house with the worst of his rage about steamed away he caught sight of her and her maid waiting while several trunks and packages were being loaded on the roof of a touring car. At the sight he went insane again. He rushed wildly toward them and shouted out, heedless of the servants: “Take that car back to the garage, Léry! Valentine, go into the house—report to Mrs. Richmond. And you”—he glared crazily at his daughter—“if you leave here you walk!—and you never come back!”
Beatrice took the hand bag from her maid. “Good-by, Valentine,” said she. There was a wonderful, quiet dignity in her bearing—a delicate correctness of attitude, neither forward nor shrinking—evident sensibility to the situation, yet no desire to aggravate it by show of superior breeding or by defiance. It was a situation savagely testing character. Beatrice responded to the test in a way that augured well for her being able to look out for herself in any circumstances. She smiled pleasantly, yet with restraint, to the agitated servants and started down the road.
Valentine hesitated, then set out in her wake. “Come back here!” shouted Richmond. “You are in my employ, not my daughter’s.”