"Couldn't I?"
"Why—yes, if you think your father would accept the situation—when he knew."
"Oh, I'd tell him he had to, that he must go away with Mr. Tony. And he'd go. But, Mr. Allendyce—I couldn't go tonight. I just couldn't let Jimmie come back with the ice cream and cake and maybe a pumpkin pie and—not find me here. Our parties are such fun. If you'll come tomorrow at three o'clock—I'll be ready. But what will the Dragon say when she sees that I'm a girl?"
Mr. Allendyce suddenly laughed aloud. The whole thing was so very simple. Madame only waited a telegram from him to set forth upon her travels. Why let her know that Gordon was a girl until the year had passed?
"We will not worry about that, my dear. Madame is going away. She will not be back at Gray Manor for a long time. I will call at three—tomorrow. I trust you will make your Jimmie understand. You know this is a very unusual step—there are some who might call it abduction—"
"Oh, Jimmie wouldn't!" assured Robin. "Not when I tell him why I'm running away."
Robin had answered him so indifferently that Cornelius Allendyce felt her mind was working out a plan for the morrow. He gave a last look about the room as though he wished to carry away a perfect impression of it, then patted the girl on the shoulder.
"Here is my card and the telephone number of my office. If you decide that this step is—too irregular, if perhaps we ought to talk with your father first—"
"No! No!" cried Robin. "That would spoil everything!"
Down in the street Cornelius Allendyce waved off a persistent taxi driver, deciding that he needed the vent of exercise to bring him back to earth. And as he hurried along he felt a curious elation, as though for the first time he enjoyed a zest in living. As a lawyer his life had been necessarily cut-and-dried; there had been little room for adventuring. And now, in a brief half-hour, he had let himself into the wildest sort of conspiracy. (He stopped suddenly and mopped his forehead.) He was planning to deliberately deceive Madame Forsyth, to steal a young and very unusual girl from her parent—and, to assume the guardianship of this same runaway. Where would it all end?