Her anger mutinied again: "Without consult'--! And since when?"
"This morning."
She winced yet smiled: "And still--your cousin--he's receive' no order?" Her fingers tingled to maim some one--this dolt--anybody! Her eyes sweetened.
Irby spoke: "The order has come, but--"
"What! you have not given it?"
"Flora, it includes me! Ah, for one more evening with you I am risking--"
Her look grew fond though she made a gesture of despair: "Oh, short-sighted! Go, give it him! Go!"
Across the hall a prolonged carol of acclamation, confabulation, laughter, and cries of "Ah-r, indeed!" told that Anna's word was out. "What difference," Irby lingered to ask, "can an hour or two between trains--?"
But the throng was upon them. "We don't know!" cried Flora. "Give it him! We don't know!" and barely had time herself to force a light laugh when here were Charlie and Victorine, Hilary, Anna, Miranda, Madame, Constance, Mandeville, and twenty others.
"Fred!" called Hilary. His roaming look found the gray detective: "Where's Captain Greenleaf?"