"But he could have called himself Mr. Fat or Mr. Skinny or Mr. Anything Else without having to ask anybody--Oh, I say!"
"What is it?" demanded Georgie fascinated.
"I've got an idea," he cried. "You can call yourself anything you like. Why not call yourself Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander?"
"But what good would that do?" she asked vaguely.
"Look here!" directed Tutt. "This is the surest thing you know! Just go up to the Biltmore and register as Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander. You have a perfect legal right to do it. You could call yourself Mrs. Julius Caesar if you wanted to. Take a room and stay there until our young Christian soldier offers you a suitable inducement to move along. Even if you're violating the law somehow his first attempt to make trouble for you will bring about the very publicity he is anxious to avoid. Why, it's marvelous--and absolutely safe? They can't touch you. He'll come across inside of two hours. If he doesn't a word to the reporters will start things in the right direction."
For a moment Mrs. Allison looked puzzled. Then her beautiful face broke into an enthusiastic classic smile and she laid her little hand softly on his arm.
A subdued snigger came from the direction of the desk usually occupied by William. Tutt flushed. It was one thing to call Mrs. Allison "Georgie" in private and another to have her "Sammy" him within hearing of the office force. And just then Miss Wiggin passed by with her nose slightly in the air.
"What a perfectly wonderful idea!" went on Mrs. Allison rapturously. "A perfectly wonderful idea!"
Then she smiled a strange, mysterious, significant smile that almost tore Tutt's heart out by the roots.
"Listen, Sammy," she whispered, with a new light in those beautiful eyes. "I want five thousand dollars."
"Five?" repeated Tutt simply. "I thought you wanted ten thousand!"
Tutt turned blazing hot; then cold, dizzy and sea-sick. His sight was slightly blurred. Slowly he groped for the door and closed it cautiously.
"What--are--you--talking about?" he choked, though he knew perfectly well.
Georgie had thrown herself back in the leather chair by his desk and had opened her gold mesh-bag.
"About five thousand dollars," she replied with the careful enunciation of a New England school-mistress.