"She was to have sailed Saturday week?" I asked, wondering at the cunning machinery of my own brain, which could keep on working after it was cold and dead! Every inch of my body was paralyzed.
"On the Luxuria," he said cheeringly, as he saw my expression. "The Luxuria, mind you, young lady!"
"And to miss it? How tragic!" I kept on absently, wishing that the whole Cunard Line was at the bottom of the sea if he meant to keep me there chattering about it all day.
"But it's tragic for the Herald," he snapped. "Don't you see we're up against it? Here, every paper in the South is doing stunts like this—getting out special stuff with its individual brand—and Pauline Calhoun can deliver the goods."
"Not with her arm broken," I mused aloud.
He looked at me impatiently.
"The thing is, we've got to send somebody abroad next week—somebody whose leg is not broken!"
"Oh!"
"And Hudson and I have been discussing you. This job you roped in last night was more than we'd given you credit for, and—so—well, can't you speak?"
I couldn't speak, but I could laugh. I felt as if my fairy godmother had taken me to a moving-picture show—where one scene was from Dante's Inferno and the next one was from a novel by the Duchess.