“And a taxicab. I shall have to leave at once.”
“But––oh, I am sorry. Shall I help you pack?”
“Thank you, no––yes––no!”
The maid went out with eyes popping, wondering what earthquake had sent the guest home alone for such a headlong exit.
Things flew in the drowsy house, and Marie Louise’s chamber looked like the show-room of a commercial traveler for a linen-house when Polly appeared at the door and gasped:
“What in the name of––I didn’t know you were sick enough to be delirious!”
She came forward through an archipelago of clothes to where Marie Louise was bending over a trunk. Polly took an armload of things away from her and put them back in the highboy. As she set her arms akimbo and stood staring at Marie Louise with a lovable and loving insolence, she heard 137 the sound of a car rattling round the driveway, and her first words were:
“Who’s coming here at this hour?”
“That’s the taxi for me,” Marie Louise explained.
Polly turned to the maid, “Go down and send it away––no, tell the driver to go to the asylum for a strait-jacket.”