Tamea was awakened by Julia at six o’clock. At seven she and Dan breakfasted together; at seven-thirty they entered Dan’s limousine, the smiling Julia tucked the robe in around her charge, took her seat beside Graves, and the homeward hegira began. At San José they looked in on the Mother Superior of a splendid convent that catered to the educational needs of young ladies of high school age, and Dan made arrangements to enter Tamea there the following day.
And this he did. Tamea had quite a wild weeping spell at the parting and Dan had to promise to write to her daily. Then the necessity for abandoning Julia was provocative of another outburst of grief, and to add to the complications this proof of devotion so touched Julia, all unused to such appreciation, that she wept loudly and copiously and was pathetically homely after two minutes of it. Dan, aware that all incoming and outgoing mail would be censored at this convent, realized that he, faced daily the awful task of composing an innocuous little letter to Tamea, and he was troubled with the thought that Tamea might not understand and go into open revolt as a result.
Finally the ordeal was over and Dan motored back to San Francisco. Here he discovered that there was trouble in the Seattle office of Casson and Pritchard and that it was necessary for him to go there at once. He welcomed the opportunity. Promptly he wrote Tamea that he was called away, but that he would telegraph her every day while he was traveling. Telegraphing was so much easier than writing under a handicap. Surely Tamea would understand that he could not afford to call her endearing names by wire. She must realize that men of his class did not do that sort of thing.
He was gone two weeks. Graves met him at the ferry depot upon his return.
“I’m glad you’ve returned, sir,” Graves announced. “The fur has been flying since you left. Mrs. Pippy gave Julia the air the minute you and Miss Larrieau were out of the house, so Julia beat it down to the convent and reported to Miss Larrieau. Up comes Miss Larrieau from the convent and tells Mrs. Pippy where to head in, and there’s a grand row. Mrs. Pippy calls on Sooey Wan to give Julia the bum’s rush out of the house and Sooey Wan tells her to go to Halifax or some other seaport. Then Mrs. Pippy cries and Julia cries and Sooey Wan cusses like a pirate and Miss Larrieau takes charge of the house and she and Sooey Wan are running it.”
Dan gasped. “But where is Mrs. Pippy?”
“She must have got frightened and left, or else Miss Larrieau fired her. Anyhow, she’s gone.”
“Has Miss Larrieau returned to school?”
“No, sir. I think she’s waiting until you get back.”
Dan sighed in lieu of the words he could not muster. Here indeed, in the expressive terminology of Graves, was “hell to pay and no pitch hot.”