“Don't try to evade your responsibility, dominie. It's all your doing.”
“Just because it isn't turning out right,” I said hotly. “You know perfectly well, lassie, that if everything had gone smoothly you would have—”
“Claimed all the credit.” The Bonnie Lassie, dimpling, took the words out of my mouth. “And quite right too. When I manage things they're—they're managed. Once again I ask you, dominie: What are you going to do about it?”
I walked over to the window and looked out, leaning on my cane. Against a pale corner of the sky, the cage top loomed haggard and grim. A swift and soaring notion sprang into being in my mind.
“I'm going to borrow your telephone,” said I.
Getting Miss Paula Varick was no slight task. I had to run the gauntlet of half a dozen questioners—they were guarding her against the onslaught of the predatory Trent, I suppose—before she answered me, not in the softly ringing music of her familiar voice, but with a deadened tonelessness which both startled and reassured me. When I had delivered my message, I returned to the studio.
“Well?” queried the Bonnie Lassie.
“I have just talked with Paula.”
“What did she say?”
“She said, as nearly as I recall, 'Oh!' Also, 'Thank you, dominie!'”