"Since Wilfred is in the party to take care of things, and look after
you," suggested Lescott, as he came into the room a trifle late, "I
think I'll say good-by here, and run along to the studio. Samson is
probably feeling like a new boy in school this morning. You'll find the
usual litter of flowers and fiction in your staterooms to attest my
filial and brotherly devotion."
"Was the brotherly sentiment addressed to me?" inquired Wilfred, with
an unsmiling and brazen gravity that brought to the girl's eyes and
lips a half-mocking and wholly decorative twinkle of amusement.
"Just because I try to be a sister to you, Wilfred," she calmly
reproved, "I can't undertake to make my brother do it, too. Besides, he
couldn't be a sister to you."
"But by dropping that attitude--which is entirely gratuitous--you will
compel him to assume it. My sentiment as regards brotherly love is
brief and terse, 'Let George do it!'" Mr. Horton was complacently
consuming his breakfast with an excellent appetite, to which the
prospect of six weeks among Bermuda lilies with Adrienne lent a fillip.
"So, brother-to-be," he continued, "you have my permission to run
along down-town, and feed your savage."
"Beg pardon, sir!" The Lescott butler leaned close to the painter's
ear, and spoke with a note of apology as though deploring the necessity
of broaching such a subject. "But will you kindly speak with the
Macdougal Street Police Station?"
"With the what?" Lescott turned in surprise, while Horton surrendered
himself to unrestrained and boisterous laughter.
"The barbarian!" he exclaimed. "I call that snappy work. Twelve hours
in New York, and a run-in with the police! I've noticed," he added, as
the painter hurriedly quitted the room, "that, when you take the bad
man out of his own cock-pit, he rarely lasts as far as the second round."
"It occurs to me, Wilfred," suggested Adrienne, with the hint of
warning in her voice, "that you may be just a trifle overdoing your
attitude of amusement as to this barbarian. George is fond of him, and
believes in him, and George is quite often right in his judgment."
"George," added Mrs. Lescott, "had a broken arm down there in the
mountains, and these people were kind to him in many ways. I wish I
could see Mr. South, and thank him."
Lescott's manner over the telephone was indicating to a surprised desk
sergeant a decidedly greater interest than had been anticipated, and,
after a brief and pointed conversation in that quarter, he called
another number. It was a private number, not included in the telephone
book and communicated with the residence of an attorney who would not
have permitted the generality of clients to disturb him in advance of
office hours.