The threat was wholly unnecessary. With shaking hands the cheat made rest.i.tution, his sallow face gray-green and distorted with silent rage.

"Now, vamoose!" Willa commanded. "If I don't hear the front door slam in just thirty seconds, you'll be the deadest hombre this side of Kingdom Come!"

There were a few seconds to spare from her ultimatum when the scurry of feet ceased in a thud which echoed through the silent house.

Willa slipped the revolver back under her belt and turned with a little rueful smile to her cousin.

"I--I suppose it wasn't just what a lady ought to have done----" she began, apologetically.

"It was wonderful!" Winthrop North's eyes shone. "You saw him stack up the cards on Pete Follinsbee, and then dug up that revolver and came in here to expose him! It's the gamest thing I ever heard of a girl doing! Congratulations, Miss Murdaugh!"

Vernon pulled himself together, and held out his hand. "I'm proud of my cousin! Only--what in thunder will the mater say if this gets out?"

"I know what Dad would have said." Willa flushed. "But I suppose I've made a regular hash of--of my debut!"

CHAPTER IX

BIRDS OF A FEATHER

"What in the world are you doing, Vernie?" Angie paused in the library door, stifling a yawn daintily as she slipped her evening cloak from her shoulders.

Vernon looked up from his book with raised eyebrows.

"I should think that was self-evident," he observed. "What brings you home so early?"

"The dance was insufferably stupid." She dropped into a chair and began stripping off her gloves. "The music was awful and you know what the Erskine's ball-room floor is like; domestic champagne, too, with frilly serviettes around the labels and half the boys drank quite too much of it. Ghastly bore, the whole affair."

"It seems to me everything is a bore nowadays, according to you."

Vernon grinned. "When is Starr Wiley coming back?"

"I haven't the least idea." Angie flushed. "What has he to do with it?"

"A good bit, I imagine," responded her brother. "You were playing him pretty strong before he left."

"Heavens! I wish you wouldn't use such horrid coa.r.s.e expressions!

That's Willa's influence, but I knew just how it would be. I warned mother it was a hopeless job to try to make anything of her the very night she came, and I'm simply dreading next Tuesday!"

"I wouldn't worry on her account if I were you," Vernon returned. "She may be a little green yet, but she's learning fast, and I wouldn't be surprised if she were the hit of the season. That black hair and dead-white skin and those deep blue eyes of hers are going to make a sensation right off the bat. You'd better look to your laurels, my dear sister."

"Tommyrot!" retorted Angie, inelegantly. "She's as awkward as a calf, and hasn't a word to say for herself, though if she'll only continue to keep still, I'm sure we shall all be thankful. Mother is in despair over her studies; she simply refused to go on with the tutor, you know--said she could read all the history and literature she wanted, and it was a waste of time to study geography until the war was over and the map settled. Moreover, she told Mr. Timmins to his face that she knew more about practical mathematics and executive finance than he did, and the dead languages could stay dead as far as she was concerned."

Vernon chortled.

"Bully for her! I think she's a corker. She dances like a dream already, and old Gaudet is ready to weep with joy over her fencing."

Angie compressed her lips, in the fashion she had inherited from her mother.

"She ought to come naturally by the dancing, I'm sure," she sneered.

"And she rides in rotten form, like a Western cow-girl. It was wise of mother to introduce her first at a small dinner instead of giving her a formal coming-out party, where she would be the center of observation."

"Yes," Vernon teased. "It is rather awkward to engineer a second debut, while the first bud is still lingering on the parent stem. You want to look out or she'll leave you at the post."

"Thank you!" Angie tossed her head. "I'm only afraid she will be a laughing-stock and bring down ridicule on all of us. You and Father are perfectly idiotic about her. You might be expected to make a fool of yourself, but I am surprised at Father's interest in her."

"You wouldn't be if you'd heard them the other night, talking about the oil business; she was actually advising him, and what's more, he took it thankfully. I couldn't quite get the hang of it myself, but you can bet I'm going to!" He flourished the book. "Little brother is going into the oil game!"

"For about two days, I suppose, until something else comes along."

Angie yawned openly. "Thank heaven, there won't be many people here Tuesday night."

"Who's coming, anyway?" Vernon demanded. "If I have to take in any giggling idiot of a debutante, you and mother can just count me out!"

"Tell her your troubles then," Angie suggested lazily. "Mr. North and Winnie will be here, of course; the Erskines, Harrington Chase, the Judsons, Mrs. Beekman----"

"Me for her!" interjected Vernon. "She's the best all-round sport in the crowd, and the only girl who can win cups at tennis and polo and yet manage to look pink-and-white in the evening. I'll ask mother to let me take her in. What's become of her brother, Kearn?"

"Mr. Thode?" Angie shrugged. "He's out West or down South, prospecting about, I imagine. Awful bore, I thought him, and so silly to spend most of his time in the wilds when he could stay in the New York office and live like a gentleman if he chose."

"A society hanger-on, grafting dinners and week-end parties because he's good-looking and there with the family tree, but not rich enough to marry? Thode's too much of a man for that, and I fancy he prefers to lead a man's life. I'm getting jolly sick of the whole thing myself, and I'd like to cut it as he has!"

"By the way--" Angie's negligible thoughts had flown off at a tangent--"isn't it funny about Cal Shirley?"

"What?" Vernon frowned. "Haven't seen him for ages."

"Nor has anyone else. He's simply dropped out of everything, and to-night I overheard his mother tell Mrs. Erskine that he was going to winter at Coronado, for the polo. It's odd, when he was rushing Suzanne so violently. Perhaps she turned him down."

"Lucky for her if she did," growled Vernon. "He's a pretty-average cad, if you want to know; I don't believe he'll show up again in a hurry."

"Why----!" Angie's eyes gleamed. "What has he done, Vernie? Is there going to be a scandal?"

"Sorry to disappoint you, my dear girl." He rose. "The incident is closed, and there won't be even a whisper to delight your ears.

However, you can take it from me that Suzanne has seen the last of one little playmate. I'm going to bed; you have interrupted the flow of--of oily meditation."

"Wait a minute, Vernie. You and Father are so prejudiced that it's scarcely worth while trying to talk to you, but mother has enough to worry about as it is, with Willa on her hands. Besides, I--I couldn't very well explain how I happened to see her, but I should like to know what Willa was doing in a horrid little frame house out on the Parkway at five o'clock this afternoon."

Vernon stared.

"Don't believe it. Someone's been stringing you. She doesn't know a soul in town--er, that is, no one but the few she has run into informally here."

"But I tell you I saw her myself! She was just coming out as I motored past."

"I say, what were you doing out there yourself? I thought you went to a matinee."

Angie grimaced.

"I went out to the b.u.mble Bee Inn for tea. You needn't be a prig about it! Lots of really nice people go, and what's the harm?" She picked up her gloves and trailed to the door. "I suppose you'll ask who I was with next, and I sha'n't tell you, my dear. I'm bored to death doing the same old proper thing all the time! Sweet dreams!"