It was only a flicker. Her head had gone into the cushions again.
"That didn't last very long," the devilish girl had commented.
"I married your father, I say—for your sake," had come from the cushions.
"That's one of the differences. There are others. If you're thinking of wiring to Uncle Augustus I'll wait; if you're not, I'll go."
Lord Moone had been wired for. He had wired back: "Impossible"; but a second wire had brought him over post-haste the next morning. The situation had been explained to him; the peer had walked away for a few moments; Louie had thought she had heard something about "our damnable women"; then, coming back, Lord Moone had abruptly convened a Committee of Ways and Means. Words like "Impossible ... once in a lifetime quite enough ... secrecy ... the Continent for a few months ... institution," had been used; and at one other alternative Louie's eyes had become hard and chill as ice.
"Thank you," she had come harshly in. "As you say, all these things may be possible. I decline them all."
Then Lord Moone, whose habit of ordering masses of men probably misled him into thinking that the ordering of one young woman who says "I won't" was a comparatively simple matter, had made his pronouncement.
"Very well," he had said. "Then as head of the family I order that your allowance shall be stopped till you come to your senses. You hear that, Emily?"
"You mean you'll starve me out?" Louie had said, with dancing eyes. Like her father, she came up to time as long as she could stand.
"I mean what I've said."