And then, while I gasped, she went on, sweetly and calmly:
"Why, Mr. Lightnut, Brother Jack would throw seventeen thousand fits if I went to a hotel, because—" She laughed deliciously. "Well, I promised him that if he would let me come home by New York I would stay right here with you and behave myself."
"Behave yourself!" I echoed indignantly. "Why, look here, do you mean to say Jack Billings—your own brother, you know—thought you wouldn't—er,—do that at a hotel?"
"Thought?" Her laugh this time was explosive. "No, he never thought it; he knew I wouldn't! He knew I would be tearing around all night with the boys—that's what!"
And dash me, if she didn't throw herself back with a kind of swagger, by Jove!
"Why, you—you wouldn't do such a thing!" I uttered faintly.
"Wouldn't I?" She straightened suddenly, and her lovely blue eyes narrowed at me. "Say, Mr. Lightnut, I don't want you to get me sized up wrong. I'm none of your little waxy gardenias—not much! When I'm in New York, it's the bright lights and the Great White Way for mine—yes, sir, every time!"
And she gave me a blow on the shoulder that was like a stroke from a man's arm. It sent me down into my chair.
"If you don't believe me," she added, her face shining with excitement, "just you ask Jack about last summer when I came through—about that joy ride to Coney with three Columbia fellows, and how we got pinched. Oh, mamma, but didn't Jack swear at me!"
I heard a noise by the door. Jenkins stood there, his eyes sticking out like hard boiled eggs.