“Wha-a-a-t?” He drew the word out skeptically. “Never met a more American dame in my life.”
“How did you meet, by the way?”
“Scotty dug her up. She lives in the Gables.”
“I know where she lives!” Eleanor retorted hotly. “Scotty would!”
“He told me,” Duff responded with heat, “that she wanted to meet me. What do you mean, she’s Russian?”
“She wants to meet any person in pants! Being tall, she likes tall ones, if available.
White Russian, she was. Family came here to Miami during the revolution. Ask mother.”
Mrs. Yates, whose door was open, could not avoid overhearing. She called, “Children! Quit squabbling!… Eleanor, Duff has a perfect right to go out with Miss Stacey if he wants.”
They heard the catch in her breath that indicated she was turning her wheel chair, and then she appeared in the doorway, smiling. “Stacey wasn’t the real name, Duff. It was, originally, Stanoblovsky. They changed it to Stacey. Back in the old days, before Walter and I came to Florida. And I guess the local people were fairly proud of having them. They were nobility, till the Bolsheviks threw them out. Maybe in 1917 or around that time. They made money here in lots of different businesses, mostly in selling cars. Mr. Stacey, Indigo’s father, had a big agency. Her uncle’s still—”
“Indigo!” Eleanor repeated scathingly.