Apparently there was an attempt to obey his order to the letter, for it was only a matter of seconds when, to judge by the firing, a regular battle was in progress.
“Hi, wait for me!” Sergeant Stebbins, bristling with zealous duty, turned on the room. “You folks stay where you are if you know what’s good for you. I guess we’ve grounded him—and sooner than I thought by a darned sight.”
“Dorn!” Julian exclaimed. “Well, it only goes to show that the first hunch is generally the right one.”
Joel was leaning weakly against the sideboard and sobbing in little gasping breaths like a spent runner. She held her head between her hands to close her ears against the racket.
“I can’t stand any more. I can’t. Oh, I can’t stand it. Turn that shooting off. Turn it off!” she cried.
“It isn’t the radio, darling,” Julian said quietly, putting his arm about her shoulders. “Though I admit it sounds like the Colt Revolver hour or something. What you think is static is being produced off stage by the housekeeper and that maid Lily who are rapidly losing their inhibitions in the pantry. Listen, dear, I do want to see what’s going on.” There was a fresh burst of gunfire. “Please can’t I go to the lattice and be a Rowena to your Ivanhoe?”
“Oh, go along. Go away. I don’t care what you do. Julian, don’t go near that window. You’ll be killed.”
But Julian had taken her first words at their face value.
“A lot of ammunition used and nothing done,” he announced from a daring stand in full view of the lawn. “That man Dorn will have time to dig himself out under the house and make a dash for it by the front gate. The sergeant has drawn off all his men from the western front to cope with this unexpected offensive; and I’m sure it’s an un-Sound move. Did you get that one?”
“Stop it, Julian! If you’re the kind of man that can pun at such a moment as this you aren’t fit to marry. And I never will marry you—never, never,—Come away from that window.”