"Oh, look here!" I growled protestingly, "I don't like to hear you talking about—er—Frances that way."
Billings grunted and bit a cigar savagely without stopping to clip it. He pulled fiercely at it a moment.
"Kind of you, old chap," he exclaimed, "but you don't know our family as I do. If Francis has got a headache now, I know that by morning—"
"Headache?" I cried in dismay.
He nodded. "So I understood over the 'phone—been getting at the governor's private stock, I'd bet all I've got." He shook his head gloomily. "No, sir; that car cost five thousand, and when you can't trust people sober, how are you going to trust them drunk?"
I sighed as I remembered the half pint of whisky she had taken—but, dash it, I didn't care! It somehow didn't seem to make any difference in my loving her. The only thing important, really, in the matter of the car was that she might hurt herself. Billings didn't seem to think of that. And yet, by Jove, she wanted to come! She must!
"See here," I said coaxingly, for Billings seemed to have gone off in a moody, brown study, "you must remember, old chap, your sister has been cooped up there in Radcliffe for months. Why not let her have the run down to the city and back? It will do her good, you know."
"Of course," he said absently. "She's going to drive the car down."
"Eh—what say?" I was sure I had not heard aright.
"I say she's going to bring the car down—my chauffeur's sick, it seems."