Miss Virginia was standing on the lowest porch step and she drew herself up in combative protest.
“You will do nothing of the sort,” she declared, with a touch of her father’s peremptory manner. “If you do, I shall let Lord Cumberleigh and Freddy Wishart know what a perfectly gorgeous place this is in which to spend a summer vacation. Good-night; it’s late and I’m going in.”
When David had descended the hill to his bunk car headquarters he found that Plegg had not yet come in. But Jean Marie François Regnier was there, dark-faced, and with the Gallic temper coruscating.
“Thees devil of hard-rock men!” he sputtered. “They ’ave not so moch as the courage of a mice! They say to me, ‘You s’all timber thees bad place or shoot it down, or bygod we s’all strike.’ Sacr-r-re!”
As once before, in a similar crisis, David Vallory sat on the edge of his bunk to take off his lace-boots.
“I’ll think about it, Regnier” he said slowly. “You tell your men that you’ve put it up to me. I’ll see you to-morrow.”
After Regnier had gone, David went on mechanically with his bed-time preparations. Then, as if at the bidding of a sudden impulse, he hurriedly put the boots and his coat on again and went out to the rear platform of the small car.
When he saw that the lights were still on in Mr. Grillage’s Pullman he dropped from the step and went across the tracks to present himself at the porter-guarded door of the Athenia.
XVIII
In Loco Parentis
ADMITTED to the office compartment of the private car, David Vallory found its occupant preparing to go up to the hotel; but at the swing of the corridor door Eben Grillage sat down again in the capacious swing-chair at his desk and relighted the stub of his cigar.