“But I do not know, really, how to get rid of Tamea. I can’t just chuck her out, you know. Can’t send her to a hotel or an apartment house and let her go on the loose. Maisie’s plan is ill-advised. You realized that.”
“Maisie didn’t have any plan. She isn’t up to the job of collected thinking now.”
“But she said she had a plan.”
“Yes, I know. She wanted an excuse to come over here this evening to guard you from Tamea.”
“Mel, you have the most extraordinary ideas. You newspaper men are always so suspicious of motives.”
“Rats! Not suspicion. Absolute knowledge. When you asked her for her plan she floundered. Got into deep water close to the shore and I had to throw her a line. Immediately thereafter—but not until Tamea had retired—Maisie went home.”
“Have you a plan?”
“You bet I have. The talk of a school is sheer nonsense. That girl is beyond school, and if you put her in a school she’ll not remain put.”
“You’ve overlooked one important detail. If she may not remain here or in school she may promptly go to the deuce, for lack of proper control.”
“That would be all right, Dan. The main point is that she must not take you with her. If she sticks around this house she’ll get you into Town Topics. She has designs on you, my boy. That’s why I suggest you queer them by marrying Maisie Morrison immediately, if not sooner. Maisie has, in effect, proposed to you, and you’ve been very cavalier in your treatment of the proposal.”