"Anywhere from fifty to seventy-five; depends on the fares I get," the chauffeur returned promptly.
"I think I can use you. What is your name?"
"Daniel Morrissey, Miss."
"I'm Willa Murdaugh." She gave no heed to the man's respectful stare. "I'll give you a hundred a week flat. You throw up your job, meet me to-morrow at the Circle at ten in the morning and we'll go and buy a good car, light and strong and fast. Can you drive a racer?"
"Anything on wheels but a locomotive!"
"All right. I'll pay you for six months, whether I use you that long or not, and make you a present of the car when I'm through with you. Is it a go, Dan?"
Then ensued the spectacle of Miss Willa Murdaugh, most important débutante of the season, and Daniel Morrissey, chauffeur, binding the bargain with a solemn handshake.
While her new ally waited, she mounted the steps of the porch and rang the bell. Hurried footsteps thumped along the hall within, and a weazened, hunch backed lad smiled eagerly in the doorway.
"Greeting to thee, José." Willa spoke in soft, liquid Spanish. "I have come to tell thee that we are safe here no longer. We must seek another casa this very day."
Dinner-time came and passed, and the Halstead family sat in strained silence, their engagements forgotten in the new anxiety which enshrouded them. Mason North, hastily summoned to the conference, paced the floor restlessly.