But before anybody could answer the President herself had jumped to her feet.
"You, Daphne Bretton?" she gasped accusingly. "You? What— are—you—doing here? Isn't it enough that you have disgraced your college without adding this fresh escapade to your career? What—what wild, unprincipled doings are you up to now? Is there no shame in you? No——" With an imperious gesture she turned to her host. "Surely, Mr. Kaire," she implored him, "you are not in earnest about this girl? Are we really to understand for one moment that you contemplate allying yourself with this girl? Putting the stewardship of your great fortune in her hands? A girl with such a history? A girl with such a character?"
"Miss Bretton's character is not under discussion here," said 182 John Burnarde decisively.
"Once again," snapped Sheridan Kaire, "I ask what affair Daphne Bretton's character is to you?"
"It's this to me," began John Burnarde with his tortured eyes fairly raking the beloved young face before him. ('What was she doing here?' ached every pulse in his body. So lovely, so irresponsible, so strangely all alone with this notorious young roué.) "It's this to me," he repeated dully, glanced back for a single worried second at his frail mother's dreadful pallor, and crossed his arms on his breast. "What is it to me, Daphne?" he asked.
"It's this to him," said Daphne fearlessly. "He liked me a little, but when the trouble came, it had to stop. It wasn't his fault! My father said it wasn't his fault! There were merely other things—other people, that had to be considered. It's all right. It's quite all right!" Defiantly the little chin lifted. "Quite all right! I'm going—away—with Sheridan Kaire!"
With a piteously vain effort John Burnarde's mother struggled to reach her crutch and lapsed helplessly back into her chair 183 again. Only her white up-turned face betrayed her shock.
But for once in his life John Burnarde did not notice his mother.
"Oh, no—no!" he cried. "You don't know what you're doing! A lovely—lovely—young girl like you to give yourself to a man like Kaire with a reputation so notorious that——"
"I'm not too notorious—I notice—for you people—to beg libraries from," drawled Sheridan Kaire. Then quite suddenly he leaned back against the wainscoating of the cabin and began to laugh sardonically. "Jabber all you want to," he said. "It's a good way to pass the time! Just a minute more now and we'll be off, beating it for Key West or Galveston—or any other place where the parsons are thickest and quickest! Miss Daphne Bretton and Mr. Sheridan Kaire—heavily chaperoned by President Claudia Merriwayne! All the newspapers will lean heavily on that chaperone item! So square it any way you want to with your college, Miss Merriwayne!" he bowed. "Now that you have squared 184 it with Daphne!" More hilariously yet he yielded to his mirth, and called loudly for the Steward. "Champagne for everybody, to- night!" he ordered. "Guests, crew, cabin boys, everybody! If the cat won't drink it, drown him in it! Drat libraries!" he shouted lustily. "This is my Bachelor Dinner!"