Miss Warren exclaimed, crossly:
"Oh, dear! I didn't send for Bernie. I'll bet he's furious."
And so it proved. When her half-brother's horrified alarm had been dispelled by the noisy group of rescuers it was replaced by the blackest indignation. He thanked them stiffly and undertook to apologize for his sister, in the midst of which Rilleau, who had now managed to regain his feet, suggested the formation of "The Myra Nell Contagion Club."
"Its object shall be the alleviation of our lady's distress, and its membership shall be limited to her rejected suitors," he declared. "We'll take turns amusing her. I'll appoint myself chairman of the entertainment committee and one of us will always be on guard. We'll sing, we'll dance, we'll cavort beneath the window, and help to while the dreary hours away."
His suggestion was noisily accepted, then after an exchange of views Murray Logan confessed that he had bolted a directors' meeting, and that ruin stared him in the face unless he returned immediately. Achille Marigny, it appeared, had unceremoniously fled from the trial of an important lawsuit, and Raymond Cline was needed at the bank. Foote, Delavan, and the others admitted that they, too, must leave Miss Warren to her fate, at least until after 'Change had closed. And so, having put themselves at her service with extravagant protestations of loyalty, promising candy, books, flowers, a choir to sing beneath her window, they finally trooped off, half carrying the rotund Mr. Kulm, who had sprinted himself into a jelly-like state of collapse.
Rilleau alone maintained his readiness to brave the perils of smallpox, leprosy, or plague at Miss Warren's side, until Bernie informed him that the very idea was shocking, whereupon he dragged himself away with the accusation that all his heart trouble lay at her door.
"Oh, you spoiled it all!" Myra Nell told her brother, indignantly. "You might at least have let him come in. Cousin Althea would have chaperoned us."
"The idea! Why did you do such an atrocious thing?"
"Where you frightened, Norvin?" The girl beamed hopefully down upon him.
"Horribly. I'm not over it yet. I'm half inclined to act on Lecompte's suggestion and break in."