"If you really want me I shall be glad to do what I can to make your affair a success. Tell your mother I will come—and thank you."
"So kind of you," drawled Marian.
But Cecile was not minded to let the interview end so tamely—or so suddenly.
"Say!" she exclaimed, "did Ford see you, Miss Grayling, before he went away?"
"He has gone away, then?" Louise repeated, and she could not keep the color from flooding into her cheeks.
"He wanted to see you, I'm sure," Cecile said bluntly. "But he started off in a hurry. Had a dickens of a row with dad."
"Cecile!" admonished Prue. "That sounds worse than it is."
Louise looked at her curiously, though she did not ask a question.
"Well, they did have a shindy," repeated L'Enfant Terrible. "When daddy gets on his high horse———"
"Ford wished to see you before he went away, Miss Grayling," broke in Prue, with an admonitory glare at her young sister. "He told us he was so confused that day he fell overboard from the Merry Andrew that he did not even thank you for fishing him out of the sea. It was awfully brave of you."