"We're disgraced, that's all there is to it!" snapped the mistress of the house, her night-cap, even at this early stage, lending her asperity. "And I the most of all! I don't see how this Beekman can help us out?"
"I don't myself," admitted her husband. "However, nothing can happen so long as Colonel Morehead sticks to us--nothing."
"I have no intention of deserting you, don't be alarmed," declared Colonel Morehead. "But for all that, I want this man Beekman--I need him." And so saying he lifted from the small table a document consisting of several sheets of carbon-copy.
"Miss Wilkinson," he said gravely, handing it to her. "No--there's nothing in it to startle you, only you should know, I think, we all ought to understand.... If you'll read this, you'll know what happened to your father this afternoon."
Puzzled at first, the girl slowly read the flimsy document as she stood there in the middle of the room.
"Oh!" she wailed, as its meaning dawned upon her. "They had no right to do this--no right whatever!"
"You're sure you understand it?" interrogated the Colonel.
The girl bowed her head gravely. Then, going over to her father,--wholly unconscious of a curious look on Flomerfelt's face,--she threw her arms about his neck.
"Father, dear father," she whispered to him, "don't mind. We'll win out."
Her father submitted goodnaturedly but wearily to her embrace. He stretched his arms and yawned.
"I'm dog tired," he said, rising. "I'm going to bed. You'll stay all night, Morehead?"
"Not a bit of it," responded the Colonel. "You don't catch me deserting my own hard bed--not much! I'll go home." He shook hands with Mrs. Peter V. Wilkinson, and pressed a button.
"How about you, Flomerfelt? It's rather late ..." said Peter V.
"Don't care if I do," was the latter's answer. And on the servant's appearing, Peter V. ordered him to show Mr. Flomerfelt to one of the guest rooms, concluding with: "Show him to the one with the painted nymphs skylarking on the walls." Then he placed his arm around his daughter, and together they followed Colonel Morehead downstairs to the door, where they bade him good-night.
Mrs. Wilkinson and Flomerfelt listened to the sound of retreating footsteps.
"He'll not be coming back," she said, "and I want to talk to you." And pointing to the document that Leslie had been shown, she asked: "What does all this signify?"