“Mrs. Quantah, I’m going to take Mrs. Carter home with me. Have you a telephone?”
Mrs. Quantah stood rigidly.
“I ain’t got no phone, an’ she ain’t a goin’ to take her trunk until she pays. She owes me two weeks’ board now, and extries.”
“I was just telling the lady,” Mr. Bernstein began, “I’d pay in advance if—”
“I’ll pay,” said Virginia superbly, sweeping past them, her head up. “Make out your bill in full, Mrs. Quantah.”
She opened the hall door and called Lucas.
“Drive over for Dr. Barbour, Lucas. Bring him here at once, if you can. While you’re over there, phone to Plato to get the west room ready for an invalid—yes, and phone to the colonel that I want him out here—in a taxi.”
“Yes’m, Miss Jinny.”
Lucas turned the fat horses around with their heads toward the highroad. Then he looked back at the tall white-clad figure in the door.
“Hurry!” she called after him.