"Who are you talking about?"
"The desperado, Dad."
"The front door!" exploded her father. "What do you mean? Who let him in?"
"I did. He came as my guest, at my invitation."
"What?"
"Don't shout, Dad," she advised. "I thought I had brought you up better."
"But—but—but—what do you mean?" he sputtered. "Is this ruffian in the house now?"
"Oh, yes. He's in the Red Room here—and unless he's very deaf he hears everything we are saying," the girl answered calmly, much amused at the amazement of her father. "Won't you come in and see him? He doesn't seem very desperate."
Clay rose, pinpoints of laughter dancing in his eyes. He liked the gay audacity of this young woman, just as he liked the unconventional pluck with which she had intruded herself into his affairs as a rescuer and the businesslike efficiency that had got him out of his wet rags into comfortable clothes.
A moment later he was offering a brown hand to Colin Whitford, who took it reluctantly, with the same wariness a boxer does that of his opponent in the ring. His eyes said plainly, "What the deuce are you doing here, sitting in my favorite chair, smoking one of my imported cigars, wearing my clothes, and talking to my daughter?"