The Web They Wove

by Margaret Cameron and Jessie Leach Rector

 

The Web They Wove

 

BY MARGARET CAMERON AND JESSIE LEACH RECTOR

 

TO the weatherwise a rosy dawn is portentous, but no foreboding disturbed the serenity of Miss Granger's breakfast-table when her niece, Lois Delafield, announced the good news contained in her husband's letter. Jim was in Montana, making the final tests of his process for reducing complex ores, and his wife, with her sister, Sallie Granger, had chosen the weeks of his absence to make visits, which had brought them in due course to this aunt in Morristown.

"Oh, splendid! Just listen!" Lois exclaimed, and the others looked up from their own mail as she read:

"'Things seem to be coming our way. Another ten days and I will have finished the final tests. Ford, the manager here, is keen for the process and has volunteered to introduce me to Sage Robertson, who happens, by great luck, to be in this country now. They're old friends. To interest that particular man seems too good to be true—only nothing is—'

"Think what that means!" Lois was glowing. "It's success, if it goes through! And it must! I do wish Jim would come East now, tests or no tests!"

"I don't," said her sister. "I think he's doing the right thing to be perfectly sure before he approaches this Robertson man. Jim takes nothing for granted."

"Oh, doesn't he!" Jim's wife retorted. "How about taking it for granted that the bird will sit in the bush until he's ready to put salt on its tail? Sage Robertson's here to-day and gone to-morrow. Oh, why doesn't Jim seize this opportunity before it's too late?"

"Why isn't it Mr. Robertson's opportunity?" asked the elder Miss Granger, accustomed from birth to grant rather than to seek acquaintance. "Why is he so important, anyway?"

"Because he owns one of the largest bodies of intractable ores in this country," Lois told her, "but he's been fooled by so many projects that it's terribly hard to interest him in a new one—especially for a young engineer like Jim. Besides, the man's so scandalously rich that a few million tons, more or less, of refractory ores don't seem worth bothering with, I suppose; but to Jim—why, a chance like this means everything!"

It was at this point that a telegram arrived from Miss Granger's favorite nephew, imploring her to come at once, as his five children had measles and the cook had left.

"Girls, I'll have to go!" she lamented. "I hate to leave you—but, after all, it's providential that you're here! I couldn't take Fifi with me, on account of the infection, and I shouldn't have a comfortable moment if I left her here with Emmy!" Emmy was an elderly spinster who had lived with her for many years, half servant, half companion, between whom and her mistress's old Skye terrier there waged perpetual strife. "I can't trust her to do the simplest things for the poor old darling."

"Well, don't worry, Aunt Mary," Sallie laughed. "I hereby constitute myself caretaker-in-chief of Fifi. I'll marcel her hair and brush her teeth, if needs must."

"Don't be flippant, my dear! I want your promise that you'll not leave her. And she must have a walk every day. Promise!"

So they promised, little realizing the devious paths through which a regard for this pledge was to lead them, and Miss Granger departed in peace. A few hours later, Jim's friend, Billy Forsyth, called, and Lois gleefully told him of the great opportunity.

"Good!" he exclaimed. "But Jim can't let any grass grow under his feet! Robertson's sailing for South Africa a week from Saturday."

"Billy! He can't sail! That's only nine days—and Jim won't be here!"

"Why won't he? Wire him to come."

"He wouldn't." Lois shook her head. "You know how quixotic he is in professional matters. He won't claim one thing until every test has been made, and by that time— Oh, Billy, that Robertson person mustn't sail so soon!"

Forsyth shrugged his shoulders. "He's up at the Equival now, playing golf, but he's to sail on the sixth."

Completely upset by this news, Lois spent the evening wandering restlessly about the house, reiterating that it would be useless to wire Jim.

"Then I don't see what's to be done," Sallie told her. "If Jim won't come, he won't. You're not expert in the gentle art of nagging."

"No, but if I could only see him I might persuade— Sallie!" Lois broke off with a gasp and a glint of excitement in her eyes. "That's what we'll do. We'll persuade the Robertson man!"

"What are you talking about?"

"He's at the Equival. We'll go up there—you and I—and between us surely we can coax him to stay over one ship. And that will give Jim his chance!"

"Lois, you're crazy! If a responsible engineer finds it difficult to interest this man, what on earth can we do? He simply wouldn't listen to us."

"Yes, he will—if we go at it the right way." In Lois the confidence of twenty-four was reinforced by the eager enthusiasm of the young wife, to whom her husband's interests were paramount. "He's evidently approachable from the human side, or this friend of his wouldn't be so sure of reaching him. Very well, let's make friends with him first, and then tell him about Jim. Now don't say we can't! We can, if you'll help!"

^But Lois—!"

"If he's married, perhaps we can get at him through his wife."

"I don't think Jim would like your meddling," Sallie warned, whereat the elder sister flushed, and retorted:

"Well, I think helping her husband is a wife's duty!"

"Maybe." Sallie shook her head. "But something tells me that this isn't the sort of machine a goddess can run. Besides, we're sworn to Fifi's service."

"What's to prevent our taking Fifi with us, silly? In fact, that's a reason for going!" Lois laughed. "Fifi feels the heat and needs a change of air."

"But we can't take her in a Pullman. It's against the rules. Neither can we tamper with our promise to Aunt Mary, and we'd certainly be damaging some of its working parts if we shipped her precious darling in the baggage-car."

"Then we'll take a state-room!" was the retort. "Dogs are allowed there, I think. I'll call up the Grand Central and ask." Accordingly, she made inquiries, and the man in New York returned:

"Is it a small dog? A Skye? Oh, well, if you take it in a basket I don't believe they'll bother you."

So the next evening found them on their way, with Fifi duly basketed, Emmy's farewell assurance being that she was "glad to be rid o' that dratted feist!"

When the sisters went to breakfast the next morning, they overheard disturbing scraps of conversation from an adjoining table.

"I used to go to the Equival every summer," a woman said, "but this new manager's the most unreasonable creature! My dear, no dogs! He actually had the audacity to tell me that toy dogs and children should not be housed under the same roof—of the two, he preferred children! And of course I refused to be separated from Matsu!"

Lois and Sallie looked at each other blankly. Within two hours of their destination, and Fifi not to be tolerated in the hotel! When they returned to their state-room, they plunged at once into discussion, Sallie favoring a return to Morristown, and Lois refusing even to consider such a course.

"Think of Jim!" she urged. "It's such an opportunity! Oh," turning an irate eye upon Fifi, "how I wish Emmy were here to 'drat' you! Who ever heard of a summer hotel where dogs weren't allowed?"

"This isn't a hotel, it's a nursery," said Sallie; and then she laughed. "There's an idea! We might swaddle Fifi in wraps and things, and smuggle her in as a baby."

"Sallie, you're a genius! Your white polo coat—my green veil—voilà!"

"But—Lois! We can't do it!"

"Why can't we do it?"

"Because—it's the sort of thing that isn't done!"

"Oh, la, la, la!" The elder lightly waved her hand. "What great exploit was ever achieved by following the beaten track? If we fail it will be a faux pas—but we're not going to fail! And when we succeed, it will be a coup!"

"But how account for this precious baby after you get it there? You can't be supposed to leave it locked in a bureau drawer," the girl pointed out. "And we solemnly promised Aunt Mary we'd take Fifi for a walk every day."

"Oh, who'll notice in a big hotel? They won't even remember the number of our rooms. We can smuggle her out every day, and let her run when we get away from the hotel—and lock her in the bath-room the rest of the time. Even if it's noticed that we sometimes have a baby, nobody's going to realize that we haven't also a nurse."

But Lois did not take into consideration the idle interest of a summer hotel. The sisters attracted attention from the moment of their arrival, and as Sallie stepped from the motor-'bus a big, loosely built man in golfing dress remarked to his companion:

"Now, there, if you like, is a girl!"

"Right you are!" was the reply. "Best type of American girl. If you'd come home oftener, Robertson, and stay longer, you'd see more of 'em."

"I spend time enough here," Robertson returned, "but there aren't many of that type anywhere. If there were, I might develop into a ladies' man. The other's attractive, too, isn't she?"

Many eyes followed the two well-gowned figures as they moved toward the desk, and the fact that one of them carried a tiny form swathed in white woolens and protecting veils elicited amazed comment from several women.

Illustration: THE SISTERS ATTRACTED ATTENTION FROM THE MOMENT OF THEIR ARRIVAL

"Somebody must have given them their clothes," said one. "People who dress that way don't travel with a small baby and no nurse."

As her sister's hands were occupied, Sallie registered, and when the clerk took the pen from her hand he glanced from the page to the little figure closely held in Lois's arms, and smilingly asked:

"Haven't you omitted the most important member of the family?"

"But—I thought—it's so little!" Sallie stammered.

"They're never so young that we don't register them in this house," he said, writing "and infant" after Mrs. James Bayne Delafield's name. With pen still poised, he added, suggestively,

"We have special rooms for servants, if your nurse—"

"I—we—have no nurse—yet." At his look of surprise Lois flushed, and concluded, desperately, "She—she was detained. She—may come to-morrow."

Illustration: HAVEN'T YOU OMITTED THE MOST IMPORTANT MEMBER OF THE FAMILY?"

Sallie shot a glance at her sister, but withheld speech until they were safely shut into their own rooms, when, with her back against the door, she remarked:

"Well! Is this a coup—or a coop? It looks to me as if we might have trouble getting out!"

"Never you mind! We're in!" Lois returned. "But it's clear we must have a nurse, and the only one we can trust not to talk is Emmy."

"Emmy not talk?" the girl derided. "She may be a sphinx in public, but think of the language she'll use to us!"

Nevertheless, they telephoned for Emmy to come at once, and took their meals in their rooms until she arrived, although Sallie slipped down to the village, returning with sundry articles of infants' outward and visible apparel. The next morning, when the 'bus from the station was due, Lois appeared on the veranda, looking even more attractive than on the preceding day, and Mrs. Ralston, a kindly but inquisitive elderly woman, asked how the dear baby was.

"Asleep, thank you," was the reply.

"1 have the room next yours," the other volunteered, "and when it was so close and stuffy last night, I thought of you in there with that poor little baby! But I didn't hear him once."

"I'm glad you weren't disturbed," Lois pleasantly returned, making a mental note that normal babies cry at night.

Just then the 'bus arrived, and it was remembered later that the nurse seemed to be making anxious inquiries which Mrs. Delafield obviously tried to hush as she hurried the gaunt, uncompromising figure into the hotel. At the moment, however, all minor interests were swept aside by the arrival of the morning papers containing announcements of the disappearance of a "millionaire baby," sole heir to the Van Alstyne name and fortune, who had been mysteriously spirited away from his father's country-place forty-eight hours before. Even the red-haired bell-boy who carried Emmy's bag was too excited by these sensational tidings to notice, in the elevator, the woman's low-toned but insistent question: "Fer the land sakes, Lois, what made ye send fer me? Sallie ain't sick, is she?" But the time came when he discovered it stamped on the tablets of his memory.

 

Mrs. Delafield and her sister, strolling out on the veranda before luncheon, found discussion of the abduction on every tongue, and as Mrs. Ralston saw them approach, she exclaimed:

"How thankful you must be that your darling child is safe up-stairs!"

To which Sallie fervently replied, "You can't imagine how thankful!"

Robertson, realizing that the quickest way to meet any new arrival was to attach himself to Mrs. Ralston, had joined her circle, and now he turned to the girl beside him, asking:

"Have you been here before, Miss Granger?"

"Never," Sallie admitted, with a whimsical gleam, "but we got in this time, and we hope they won't bar us out when we come again."

"I hope you'll want to come again," he said. "It's very pleasant, meeting the same people here year after year."

"Is that a pretty speech? Or an implication that, like wine, we can't be really acceptable until several summers have aged us?" she inquired.

"Ah, but sometimes making a new acquaintance is like finding an old friend, isn't it?"

"If that's your experience, the making of every new acquaintance must be an adventure," was her suggestion, and he promptly retorted:

"But the grand adventure comes to most of us but once—and to some of us not at all."

She laughed, and they all went to the dining-room, where, before he left them, Robertson secured the girl's promise to play golf with him that afternoon. When he had turned away, Lois caught her sister's hand, whispering:

"Oh, Sallie, it's begun! We can do it! When can we tell him about Jim?"

"Right away," was the confident reply. "I like him. Don't you?"

"Yes, but—we mustn't be precipitate," cautioned the elder. "We must be sure he likes us first. Remember, Jim says he's wary of new projects—and we don't want him to shy. You see, he won't believe we know a thing in the world about the process. He'll only listen to us because he likes us."

"That man will listen to anybody who's intelligent," said Sallie. "I wonder whether he is married. Somehow, I think not."

After luncheon, when the younger sister had gone off with Robertson, and excitement over the disappearance of the Van Alstyne child had waned a little, Mrs. Ralston turned her attention to Mrs. Delafield, and the discovery that the new-comers claimed kinship with her friend Mrs. Adams, of Brookline, only strengthened her determination to take them under her patronage.

"Do, my dear, bring that baby out on the veranda!" she urged. "I want to see him! What is his name?"

"His name?" vaguely repeated Lois, unprepared for this emergency. Then, succumbing to the other's assumption that the child was a boy: "Oh—Jim. That is—James, of course."

"Of course, for his father. I noticed your name on the register. Do, please, send for him!"

"I think he's asleep," Lois evaded, a definite reserve in her manner despite her pleasant tone. "He—he sleeps a good deal."

"That's why he's so quiet," said Mrs. Vernon, whose room was directly over Lois's. "He cried a little before luncheon, but it's the first peep I've heard. I wouldn't have known there was a baby there!"

"Wouldn't you? I'm afraid his good behavior won't last."

Masking her uneasiness with a smile, Lois made her escape, somewhat appalled by the exigencies of this situation, which at first had seemed so simple, and in which she had so confidently involved herself. She realized, also, that she must lose no time in telling her accomplices of this latest development. But events moved more rapidly than she anticipated.

Emmy, after two hours of vigorous plain speaking, had yielded to pleading and cajolery, accepting the role assigned to her by adventurous youth, but grimly prophesying that they should all be holden with the cords of their sins. During the afternoon she slipped out of the hotel and repaired with her muffled charge to an unfrequented spot in the woods, without exciting comment; but when she was seen returning, some one on the veranda remarked:

"There comes pretty Mrs. Delafield's small daughter."

"Son, you mean," corrected Mrs. Ralston.

"Daughter, my dear. I asked Miss Granger. Her name's Jane."

"But—Miss Evans! Mrs. Delafield herself told me! It's a boy. They call him James—for his father!"

"Why—how extraordinary!" A startled glance ran around the group before some one laughed, explaining:

"James and Jane aren't unlike in sound. One of you has misunderstood. Here comes Miss Granger now—with Mr. Robertson. He seems rather épris, doesn't he? It's the first time he's noticed a woman—except to avoid her—since I've known him."

As the couple approached the gossiping group, Miss Evans turned to Sallie, saying, pleasantly: "What a relief it must be to you and your sister that your nurse has come! She's just taken little Jane in." Then, as the girl merely smiled: "I'm right about the name? You did say Jane?"

"Yes—I said Jane." Sallie glanced quickly about. "Why?"

"But—my dear!" Mrs. Ralston was beginning to look troubled. "I certainly understood your sister to say the child was a boy, and was named James—for his father!"

"Oh—did you? Well—" She hesitated, flushed and disconcerted for a moment, and then, realizing that the situation, though absurd, was crucial, and that she must either cover her slip quickly or betray her sister, she took the plunge, and forced herself to take it laughing. "Oh, I see! I suppose it is puzzling. The name is James Jayne—J-a-y-n-e," she spelled, "and I insist he should be called Jayne to distinguish him from his father—though I begin to see it has disadvantages!" Which seemed, at the moment, a perfectly plausible explanation.

Hastening to their rooms, Sallie found Lois, and exclaimed: "My beloved sister, this plot thickens far too rapidly! Let's go away before it gets any worse! Listen to what's just happened to me!"

"It is a bit skiddy, isn't it?" Lois conceded, when each had heard the other's tale. "If I'd dreamed for an instant it would be like this, I wouldn't have come. But now we're in it, and we—or at least you—are getting hold of Mr. Robertson. And think what that may mean to Jim!"

"Jim would certainly be the first to condemn what we're doing," Sallie urged, but the wife replied:

"He won't have a chance to condemn it. If we succeed, he can't help being glad, and if we fail, he needn't—" She broke off, looking a little startled, and flushed deeply as she confessed: "Sallie, I almost said he need never know!"

"Lois, dear, don't you see where it's leading already? Three days ago that thought wouldn't have been possible to you. The thing's cumulative!"

"I know." Lois moved uneasily. "But—it isn't as if we'd deliberately planned all this!"

"Deliberate or not, it's horrid to lie! I have a growing sympathy for criminals. Perhaps they don't mean to, either, when they start."

"I know," again said Lois. "But here we are, Sallie. We're in it! And what's the alternative now? If we go away, Jim loses this wonderful chance, and he may never get another like it! If we send Fifi away, we break our promise to Aunt Mary. In either case somebody's hurt. But if we merely practise a little deceit that hurts nobody—"

"It does!" hotly protested the girl. "It hurts me! I hate myself when I lie! I feel smirched!"

"So do I! But of the three courses now open to us, which carries the lightest penalty?"

"Anyway, I'm going to tell Mr. Robertson." Sallie flung her challenge defiantly, and the other retorted:

"And spoil everything?"

"It wouldn't! He's human—and humorous—"

"Of course he's human—and he may be humorous—but remember, he's also wary in business matters. You couldn't explain any of this without telling him why we had to come to this particular hotel, and—don't you see? He doesn't know anything about us, and he'd be sure to resent that sort of approach if he thought it was deliberate. And that would close the door for ever to Jim. No, no; you can't tell him!"

"But—"

"Sallie, promise me you won't!" Lois was almost in tears. "After all—you're a dear to help and I couldn't do it without you, but, after all, it is my affair, isn't it? Mine and Jim's? Then promise! It's only for a few days, anyway."

"Well—I promise." Sallie's tone was reluctant, and presently Lois asked:

"Who wrote that thing about the 'tangled web we weave when once we practise to deceive'?"

"The trouble with us seems to be that we've never practised, the other returned, with a short laugh. "Ours is unskilled labor."

A day or two after this it began to be whispered about among the women that the Delafield baby must be afflicted in some hideous way, for he was always carried to and from the hotel completely hidden in wraps, and every attempt to see him had been frustrated. Emmy's forbidding vigilance yielded neither to finesse nor persuasion, and both Mrs. Delafield and her sister had ever an evasive manner when the subject of the child was broached. They said he was nervous and people seemed to excite him, and that they were advised to keep him as quiet as possible.

Illustration: THERE'S ONE OF EM NOW. THAT'S MISS GRANGER

Meanwhile the sisters were taking an active part in the life of the summer colony, and Robertson, hourly more deeply impressed by Sallie's charm, began to wonder whether at last he was really embarked upon "the grand adventure," and whether he might not want more time than was at his command unless he postponed his sailing-day. Accordingly, he asked one day:

"What are your plans for the rest of the summer, Miss Granger? Shall you be here long?"

"Probably not," she replied. "Our movements are more or less dependent upon my brother-in-law's."

"You said he was in Montana?"

"Yes, but we expect him home in a few days. He's just completing the final tests of his new process for reducing complex ores."

"Oh!" Despite his large holding, Robertson was not interested, just then, either in refractory ores or in Jim Delafield's activities, but he perceived that if he should need an excuse for delaying his trip, here it was to his hand, so he caught at the suggestion. "If he has a good process, I'd like to meet him. I own rather a lot of intractable ores, but I've never found a satisfactory method of handling them."

"Too bad you're sailing so soon, then," she said, lightly, but with beating heart. "I believe his is turning out even better than he hoped, but we shall know more about it when he gets here. Jim's so conservative he never will back himself unless he has a sure thing."

"Good point," said Robertson. "Perhaps I can arrange to stay over, if he's coming soon."

Sallie went radiantly from this interview, to find the ever-irate and protesting Emmy telling Lois of an encounter with some of the other nurses, from whom, perforce, she held rigorously aloof, and who retaliated, when occasion offered, by insulting suggestions that she was guarding a "freak."

"An' me—at my age—havin' to lug that pestiferous critter around, an' take all that impudence from them little snippets!" she droned. "It's no better 'n lyin', Lois Granger, an' you mark my words, the Lord 'll repay!"

"For Heaven's sake, Emmy, let them say anything they like," begged Sallie, "but don't let them catch a glimpse of Fifi! And cheer up! It's almost over!" Whereat Emmy sniffed and left the room. After telling Lois of Robertson's intimation that he might remain until Jim arrived, she urged: "Now I can tell him about Fifi! After all, the dog's hurting nobody here," she hurried on, combating the alarm and opposition in her sister's face. "And Mr. Robertson's so clean and straightforward and fine—and we've grown to be really friends in these few days! I can't bear not to be frank with him, Lois!"

"But—suppose he should resent it?" the other demurred. "He might, you know. You can't really be sure what he'd do—and we've gone too far to go back now! We've jeopardized Jim's interests, and we must succeed! We must! We can't take any chances!"

"But don't you see we are taking chances?" was the instant retort. "Lois, among other dangers, think what a story for the papers! Oh, how ghastly it would be to be found out now!"

"Of course it would be ghastly!" There was a hint of asperity in Lois's tone. "But do remember that you have the easy end of this, after all! You and Mr. Robertson have been getting on so splendidly that I've left all that part of it to you. But suppose you let me drive and golf and dance with him to-morrow, and you try evading the searching questions of a dozen mothers of many! See what you know about modified milk and silk versus wool! I never dreamed a baby could be a subject for such perpetual inquisition! I've either got to seem hopelessly ignorant or perfectly unfeeling—and in any case I'm a liar!"

"Still, this is your affair, you know, and a wife's first duty is to help her husband," Sallie reminded her, with a twinkle, but added: "Mr. Robertson's not a man to brook trifling with the truth, Lois, and even as a mere matter of expediency we'd much better confess than be found out. Think what that would do to Jim's chances!"

She could speak frankly enough of Jim's chances, but she hid from a growing consciousness that her interest in her brother-in-law's affairs could not account for the importance that Robertson's opinions were beginning to assume for her. Lois, however, shrank from making a bold play, now that success seemed almost within their grasp, and the only concession Sallie could win from her was an agreement that she might explain the situation to Robertson after he had definitely postponed the date of his sailing.

A possible solution of their difficult situation seemed to offer the next evening, when Mrs. Ralston playfully suggested to Sallie that she needed a daughter to keep her young, and the girl, quick to perceive the opportunity, intimated that she was open for adoption—temporarily, at least—as Lois might be obliged to leave at any moment, to which the older woman made ready and gracious response. Sallie restrained her exultation with difficulty until she was alone with Lois, when she jubilantly announced:

"The coop's open! Fly! Mrs. Ralston has offered to chaperon me; so you may clasp our darling Fifi to your maternal breast, and beat it!"

"Beat Fifi?" Lois laughed. "It's an alluring prospect, but conscience forbids! I may be an impostor and a hypocrite and a liar, but it shall never be said that I broke a promise!"

"Then let Emmy do it!" gaily advised the girl.

The following morning they talked over this arrangement with Mrs. Ralston, who was unmistakably delighted, and Lois excused herself to pack, preparing to take an evening train, while Mrs. Ralston strolled into the desk for her mail. Shortly thereafter, frowning and tapping a letter against her fingertips, she sought her friend Mrs. Vernon.

"My dear, I want advice," she said. "Mrs. Delafield's going away, and I've promised to chaperon Miss Granger, and—well—frankly, how do you feel about them now?"

"Frankly, I don't like them," was the reply. "Any mother who can play through the long day and dance half the night, leaving an afflicted child to the care of a servant, is not sympathetic to me. The poor little thing cried pitifully last night—they came in very late—and they laughed! The laughter was smothered at once—but it was cruel! And it's not the first time I've heard it."

"I didn't mean to tell any one about this letter," said Mrs. Ralston, after a moment of hesitation, "but I feel that I must. You heard them say that my friend Mrs. Adams was their cousin? Well, this is what she says. It's just come." Opening the letter, she read:

I am at a loss to understand your mention of my cousins, unless your friends have confused me with some one else. There are several families of Adamses in Brookline, and probably they are related to one of the others. The puzzling thing is that I have cousins named Granger, and one of them married Jim Delafield. But she and her sister, Sallie Granger, visited me last month, and are now with our aunt in Morristown, and Lois has no children. Her name, by the way, is Mrs. James Bayne Delafield. Probably your friend is Mrs. Tom, Dick, or Harry; but isn't it an amazing coincidence?'"

Mrs. Ralston dropped her hands in her lap and stared at her friend, who presently said:

"Of course you realize what this means? They're adventuresses! You can't possibly chaperon the girl! And don't you think you should warn Mr. Robertson? It was probably a matrimonial project that brought them here."

"I'm afraid you're right." Mrs. Ralston sighed heavily. "But it shakes my faith in my own judgment. They did seem such nice girls!"

When Robertson came in to luncheon, he found a summons from her in his box, and immediately joined her in a secluded corner of the veranda.

"I don't want to seem an officious old woman," she began, "but I introduced you to Miss Granger and her sister, and I think it's only fair to you —and to myself—to show you this letter from Mrs. John Field Adams, of Brookline. Both of them have told me she was their cousin."

He read in silence the paragraph she indicated, a slight narrowing of his eyes and tightening of his facial muscles the only visible indication of emotion. When he returned the letter his comment was brief.

"That seems—incredible."

"I know it—but there it is! Mrs. James Bayne Delafield—you can't get away from that! She's leaving this afternoon, and I've promised to chaperon her sister, but now— Of course, after their heartless treatment of that afflicted baby, we might have—"

"Afflicted?" he interrupted. "How afflicted?"

"We don't know. The child's a mystery. Haven't you heard? It's always muffled up in veils and flannels when the nurse takes it out—nobody's allowed even a glimpse of it—and none of the three can be induced to talk about it! And that's not natural, especially in a young mother! The little thing cries piteously—and they laugh! All day long they amuse themselves, and leave it to a perfect old dragon of a nurse! So—with it all, I felt that I ought to show you this letter."

"Thank you," he said. "I—I don't know what to say. It's—amazing."

Even the voluble woman realized that his lack of words indicated a deep disturbance, and she let him go without further comment, turning her own steps toward the sisters' rooms, determined to get her unpleasant business over at once. At her knock, the door was opened about three inches, and Emmy glared at her through the aperture thus made, grudgingly imparting the information that "they" had gone down to luncheon. Emmy's temper had been sorely tried that morning by several encounters with Annie, the maid in that corridor, and she was not in a mood for suavities.

Annie herself was in no better humor, and expressed her emotions freely to Tommy, the red-haired bell-boy with sporting propensities, whom she met in one of the halls immediately after having been refused admittance to Mrs. Delaneld's room for the last time.

"Them women in a hunderd an' seven an' eight make me tired!" she informed him. "An' that Emmy! Always talkin' at me through a crack! 'Come back in twenty minutes! Come back in two hours!'" she mimicked. "I 'ain't never been let in there but once, unless they was all out! An' that time they had the kid locked in the bath-room!"

"Well, what you raggin' about?" he grinned. "They ain't runnin' no side-show! Say"—confidentially—"what's the matter with the kid, anyhow?"

"Search me! But they sure are scared somebody's goin' to see it! What if they did? You'd think somebody wanted to steal their freak!"

At this the boy's eyes gleamed, and he exclaimed: "Gee! Why didn't I never think o' that before?"

"Think o' what?"

"Oh, nothin'." He tried to cover his excitement by an affectation of carelessness. "Say, 'bout how old's that kid?"

"What do I know 'bout the kid?" she snapped. "But I know one thing sure! Them two ain't ladies!"

"What 'd y' hear? G'wan, tell a feller!" he urged.

"Well, I ain't no eavesdropper, but I heard enough! Say, that Emmy calls 'em by their first name! An' the day she come she was raisin' Cain with 'em f'r upwards of two hours!"

"What for?"

"Search me! She kep' sayin' she wouldn't stand f'r somethin', an' no good 'd come of it, an' they'd all get into trouble. An' they was coaxin' an' beggin' an' callin' her 'dear Emmy'! Them—ladies? Huh!"

"Hully gee!" said the boy, softly. "Me first under the wire! Lead me to it!" and sped away to the telephone, while the maid plodded, muttering, on her way, neither of them realizing that their conversation had taken place near a door under an open transom.

Within an hour Miss Evans had whispered to several friends her surprise that apparently it had occurred to no one else to connect the hotel mystery with the Van Alstyne child. She admitted that the women looked like ladies, but when one remembered all the queer details and the curious little discrepancies, it did seem suspicious, didn't it? Leaving the dining-room, she overtook Mrs. Vernon and Mrs. Ralston, who had postponed her interview with the sisters until after luncheon. Again Miss Evans began her sibilant tale, and the three were still standing in the office with their heads together when Lois, approaching unobserved, slipped her hand through Mrs. Ralston's arm, saying, happily:

"I'm all packed, and, thanks to your kindness in looking after Sallie, I'm really off to-night." Aware, before she ceased speaking, of a chill in the manner of the others, she looked at them, startled and wondering.

"I'm sorry to disarrange your plans"—Mrs. Ralston disengaged her arm from the young woman's light clasp—"but it will not be possible for me to chaperon your sister."

"But—I understood—" Lois's tone was a little breathless.

"I'm sorry. I find it necessary to change my plans."

Illustration: THERE WAS A MOMENT OF AMAZED SILENCE

Feeling that an explanation was due, but for the moment too perturbed to demand it, Lois murmured an excuse and fled toward the elevators, while Mrs. Vernon, watching her retreating figure, murmured:

"You see? She needed no illumination. I wonder where the sister is?"

"The sister" had promised to walk and later to play tennis with Robertson, and they had left the hotel together immediately after luncheon. At first Sallie made sundry efforts toward conversation, but, finding him preoccupied and unresponsive, fell in with his apparent desire not to talk. She was surprised when he asked, abruptly, after a long silence:

"Miss Granger, is your sister's baby ill?"

"ll1? Why—no," she replied, struggling with her impulse to tell him the whole story despite Lois's ban. "He's rather nervous, and we try to keep him very quiet—which is less easy than we thought in a summer hotel. On that account, I know Lois is wise to go to-night, but I'm glad I'm not going. I'm having such a wonderful time!"

"It has been pleasant." Again he seemed remote and she was conscious of a restraint in his manner. "I'm sorry to have my share in it end."

"End?" she echoed, quickly.

"I must leave to-morrow morning, if I'm to sail Saturday."

"But—I thought—didn't you say you might not go so soon?"

"Yes, but—it seems best to go."

"Oh—I'm sorry," she faltered, overwhelmed by a blinding realization of what his absence would mean to her, and then fell back upon the only plea she could make to hold him. "Jim will be disappointed, too."

"I'm sorry that it's advisable."

"I suppose the thought of getting back to your real interests is alluring." Determined that he should not know of the shock she had received, she made herself talk. "They say the American man doesn't know how to play more than two weeks at a time."

He caught the thread she tossed him, and they walked on, chattering the facile commonplaces of chance acquaintances. All the camaraderie that had flavored their intercourse was gone, and Sallie felt young and effaced. Presently, giving her sister's impending departure as an excuse, she suggested postponing their tennis until the following day, and they returned to the hotel, still painfully talking platitudes. As they were seen entering the office, the red-haired bell-boy, in close conference with the constable he had summoned and a clerk, said:

"There's one of 'em now. That's Miss Granger."

"But—hold on!" protested the clerk, as the officer started quickly toward Sallie, followed by the boy. "Don't make trouble here! Get her up-stairs first!" When the others paid no heed, he came hastily out from behind the desk and overtook them just as the stranger accosted Sallie.

"Miss Granger? You're wanted."

"Wanted?" she repeated, wonderingly. "Wanted?"

"Cut that out," he advised, pushing aside his coat to show his badge. "We're wise to you, all right."

"Let's not have any trouble here!" anxiously urged the clerk. "The elevator's waiting. Just go up-stairs, please." But Sallie stood perfectly still.

"Wise? I don't understand." She turned her puzzled glance toward Robertson, who asked, curtly:

"What's the charge, officer?"

"Kidnappin'," was the brief answer. "The Van Alstyne child."

"Kidnapping!" the girl echoed. An instant later, the significance of the situation penetrated her dazed brain, and she cried, "Why—how absurd!"

"Let's all go up-stairs," again interposed the clerk, uneasily aware that already curious glances were directed toward them. "Come! This is too public. Mrs. Delafield's in her room."

"But—what shall I do?" Still amazed and bewildered, Sallie turned almost involuntarily to Robertson.

"Would you like to have me go with you?" he asked.

"Oh—would you?"

The little group moved toward the elevator, and when the clerk discovered that the red-haired boy was still following, he said, over his shoulder:

"We sha'n't need you, Tom. Besides, the 'bus from the two-sixteen's due any minute now." Whereupon the boy, scowling, fell back.

In silence the four entered the elevator, and in silence they walked to Room 107, where the constable rapped, after which they waited—interminably, it seemed to Sallie—while movements were heard within, followed by the sound of a closing door. Then the key was turned, and Lois stood before them, her startled, anxious glance sweeping from one to another of the portentous faces confronting her.

^Oh!" she gasped. "What is it?"

"They think—" Sallie began. But the constable stepped into the room and laid a hairy brown hand on Lois's arm, demanding:

"Where's that kid?"

"What do you mean?" She shrank away from him, but he kept his hold upon her, impatiently urging:

"Oh, cut that out! There's no use bluffing! Where's the kid?"

"They think we have the Van Alstyne child," Sallie hurriedly explained.

"But—but we haven't! How perfectly ridiculous! Of course we haven't!" Lois looked appealingly at Robertson, who responded gravely but gently:

"It's felt that there's some mystery about your child. Perhaps, if you'll let this officer see him—"

For a moment Lois regarded him with stricken eyes. Then she looked at Sallie, and both flushed heavily.

"I—can't," the elder sister confessed. "There is no child."

"There certainly was a child when you came here," the clerk crisply reminded her. "You carried it—and I registered it."

"I never had a child," said Lois. Turning quickly, she opened the bath-room door and disappeared.

"Don't let her get away!" exclaimed the constable, starting forward, but he had taken only a step when she reappeared with Fifi. Holding the wriggling, wheezing old Skye at arm's-length, she declared:

"That's what I carried!"

There was a moment of amazed silence before the constable ejaculated:

"Oh, hell! What do you take me for?"

At that instant, following a quick tap, the door from the hall opened and Emmy stood on the threshold, gaunt, rigid, and accusing. Surveying the group with a comprehending gaze, she remarked, disgustedly, "Huh! It's come, has it? I told you girls ye'd git us all into trouble!"

"The nurse," the clerk explained, and the officer sharply demanded, "Where's that kid?"

"There ain't any kid," she told him, calmly. "Never was."

"By George! they've got rid of it!" the man exclaimed, and Emmy returned, in her dry, emotionless tone:

"I'd 'a' liked to 've got rid of it—dratted little feist! Lois, I told ye no good 'd come o' this! It's a judgment on us fer pretendin' a four-footed beast was a child o' God."

"But there was a child! We heard it cry!" Startled by this exclamation, they all turned to see Mrs. Vernon standing in the doorway, and behind her Mrs. Ralston. These ladies had seen the beginning of the scene down-stairs, and had followed to Mrs. Ralston's room, adjoining, whence, through the open doors, they had overheard the colloquy. "The poor little thing cried pitifully!" Mrs. Vernon reiterated. "And these women laughed! I heard them!"

"It was Mrs. Ralston herself who suggested that to us! She was surprised that the baby never cried!" Lois indignantly regarded the new-comers.

Illustration: I'M GOING TO WAIT—UNLESS YOU SEND ME AWAY

"And I did the rest," Sallie finished. "And we did laugh. We thought it was funny." Reading incredulity in most of the faces about her, she repeated, "I tell you I can cry just like a baby—and I did it!"

The sisters, in their youth and distress, presented much the appealing aspect of naughty children detected in mischief, but the constable, intent upon making a record for himself, was not to be caught in the snares of sympathy.

"Say, you're pretty smooth, but you don't actually expect anybody to believe that, do you?" he demanded, and Sallie retorted:

"Why not? It's the truth."

"I guess not! You can't put that over on me! You may have passed the kid on to some o' the rest o' your gang, but, by the Eternal, I've got you, and I'm goin' to hold you!"

"Officer, are you sure you have sufficient evidence on which to hold these ladies?" At the first sound of Robertson's voice, cool and steady in the midst of the excitement, Sallie's glance sought his, and something in his softened expression gave her courage. "Has any one about the hotel actually seen the child?" he asked.

"They've heard it. That's enough for me," was the reply. "This yarn's too thin! 'Tain't reasonable that they'd pay board, and keep a nurse, and cry nights, and go to all that fuss just to keep that thing here!" He glanced contemptuously at Fifi. "Why should they? There's plenty other places."

"I'll tell you why!" Sallie seemed to answer the constable, but she looked at Robertson, resolved at last to tell him the whole truth, regardless that he, of all others, might most misunderstand her. "We had to come here because we heard that a man vitally important to my brother-in-law's interests expected to be here." Robertson's face hardened again, and the gaze he bent upon her grew piercing, but she struggled on, despite her qualms. "He was to leave the country sooner than we had expected, and as it was impossible for Jim to get here in time, my sister felt that she must come herself. It—it wasn't a thing one could do by correspondence."

"It was entirely my plan," Lois interjected, realizing, with a pang, that Sallie now recognized no presence save Robertson's, and that the man's face was a mask, the rigidity of which was broken only by his keen, questioning gaze. "There wasn't time to consult my husband. My sister protested against it from the first—she hated the deceit—so did I—but when we began we had no idea that it would lead to—lead so far! And then there seemed no way out—we were caught—"

"Don't, Lois." Sallie checked her sister's hurried, choking utterance with a gesture, and, without turning her own clear glance from Robertson's, continued: "The dog was left in our charge by an aunt. She loves it very dearly, and we gave her our word that we'd care for it personally until she came back. So we had to bring it. We didn't know that dogs weren't allowed in this hotel." Briefly then she sketched the story of their journey and their arrival, concluding: "We had no idea—we never dreamed—it would involve all this trouble—and—lying! We thought nobody would notice—and it seemed more important than anything else, until—until—" She broke off, convinced by Robertson's stern, set face that her confession had been futile. He had misunderstood.

"Until what?" he asked, harshly.

"Until—afterward." Her reply was almost inaudible, and she could not force herself to look at him again. Then, realizing that she must not break down, she summoned the only defensive weapon she had left, and said, with a catch in her voice, but twisting her trembling lips into a humorous curve, "Lois said a wife's first duty was to help her husband—and I believed it."

A noise of running feet was heard in the corridor, and Tommy appeared in the doorway, brandishing a newspaper with red head-lines.

"Forget it!" he shouted. "The kid's found—in Florida! It's all here in this extry a guy brought in on the two-sixteen! No reward in ours!" He grinned at the constable. "But gee! 'ain't it been excitin'!"

There was a breathless pause, before Lois, rallying all her forces, said, "Surely, that ends this!" "Now, if you'll permit us, my sister ^and I will say good-by. We're leaving to-night."

"Oh, my dear—I'm so sorry for this!" Mrs. Ralston stepped quickly toward Lois, and at her tone the tears rushed to Sallie's eyes. Turning blindly aside, she found her flight blocked by Robertson's figure.

"When may I see you again?" he asked, stiffly, and, trying to second his apparent effort to observe the conventions, she managed to reply:

"I'm afraid not at all, since you sail so soon."

"But I'm not sailing," he said, unsteadily. "I'm going to wait for a man who's coming from Montana—unless you send me away."