CHAPTER XII
COLONEL WEDEKIND
Tom was flustered.
He did not know what to say or how to behave with Bertha a few feet away looking on very disdainfully and very impatiently, evidently intent on not recognizing him.
He turned for moral support to Lord Vyvyan—who had slipped away. He saw his broad-shouldered form disappear in the taxicab, the roof of which was piled high with an assortment of extremely British-looking luggage: from golf sticks to plaid roll, from pigskin Gladstone bag to a bundle of canes and umbrellas,
Tom's first idea was that Martin Wedekind must have cabled to his brother in Berlin. He could not have written, since Tom had taken the first steamer out of New York, and so there would not have been margin enough for a letter to go by the same ship, reach the German capital, and give the Colonel time to get to Bremen, Perhaps Martin Wedekind had included the news of his coming in the wire advising that of his daughter.
Tom was surprised at the thought. But he was even more surprised when the Uhlan's next words showed him that no such cable had been sent or received.
74
