Dan shrugged helplessly.
“If you send her to a boarding school now,” Maisie suggested, “she would matriculate in the middle of a semester. You refer to her as a child, Dan, but she is a fully developed woman, and I fear that her education, in English at least, has been so neglected that she would have to start in the same class with girls of ten or twelve. This would prove embarrassing to her. She should have a year of private tutoring.”
“Where, Maisie?”
“I do not know, Dan.”
“But you telephoned to me this evening that you had a plan to discuss.”
“My plan is not fully developed, Dan, but it contemplated the engagement of a governess and companion for Tamea, and sending them both to a warmer climate—say Los Angeles—until Tamea becomes acclimated. You seemed worried about her in the cooler climate of San Francisco.”
“That’s a splendid plan,” Mellenger hastened to interrupt. “The success of it depends upon the acquisition of the right sort of governess, of course. She should be firm, indomitable, tactful, able and possess the physical attributes of the champion heavyweight pugilist of the world.”
“I fear you are absolutely right,” Dan sighed.
“Well, then, I’m at my wits’ end, Dan’l,” Maisie confessed.
“I am not,” Mellenger replied coolly. “I beg of you, Maisie, to dismiss the matter. I shall go into executive session with myself and evolve a plan that will be puncture-proof. I fear me neither you nor Dan is able to think clearly in this emergency.”