"You—what?"
Before her slender, outraged dignity Johnnie wilted. "Kitty, she—she can chaperoon you. It's all right, ma'am. I—we—I didn't go for to do nothin' that wasn't proper. We thought—"
"You mean that you brought me here expecting me to go along with you—without my consent—without a trunk—without—"
Clay took charge of the kidnaping. "Johnnie, if I were you I'd light a shuck back to the other car. I see I'll have to treat this lady rough as you advised."
Johnnie wanted to expostulate, to deny that he had ever given such counsel, to advise an abandonment of the whole project. But his nerve unexpectedly failed him. He glanced helplessly at Clay and fled.
He was called upon the carpet immediately on joining Kitty.
"What are you up to, Johnnie? I'm not going to have you make a goose of yourself if I can help it. And where's Mr. Lindsay? You said he'd meet us here."
"Clay, he's in the next car."
"You took Miss Beatrice in there to say good-bye to him?"
"No—she—she's goin' along with us."