Letitia, at the telephone: "Archie says that we want advice and not abuse, Aunt Julia, and I must say that I agree with him. Amusing? I don't think so, at all. I call it tragic. Forget it, and hustle for another cook? If I only thought, Aunt Julia, that the case was as simple as that I should feel extremely relieved. Thank you. No, don't come in—please don't. I am quite capable of hustling, and Archie is here. No. Really, Aunt Julia, I wish you wouldn't call him an ass. You must remember that he is my husband. Even if he is an ass—which I am not admitting—you have no right to tell me so."
"You seem to imply, Letitia," I interrupted, much hurt, "that although you don't admit I'm an ass, I really might be one."
Letitia did not hear my little protest, but continued: "Yes, I will. Did you say intelligence office? Yes, I hear. Is there one in New York? Oh, thank you, Aunt Julia. It sounds so easy, and even delightful. One goes there and just selects a cook from a whole gathering of them? Aunt Julia, you have saved our lives. You think we are quite justified in believing that Anna has merely left, and has not met with foul play. How should we know? After all, if she had told us, we shouldn't have detained her. We didn't want to detain her. Quite usual? I can't credit that, Aunt Julia. You must be a pessimist. No, don't come into town, dear. If we need you, we'll wire. Yes, otherwise all is well. No, there is no hitch. Good-by."
She hung up the receiver, her face wreathed with smiles, and placing her hands on my shoulders, tip-toed and kissed me.
"Oh, I'm so glad, Archie," she cried, "that this horrible possibility of crime has been dispersed by Aunt Julia. She says that it is quite the thing in New York for a cook to vanish instantly, almost as though she had been conjured away. It is the etiquette of cooks, Aunt Julia says. And the delightful uncertainty of their return, every time they go out for a stroll, makes life exciting."
"I can't see anything to be pleased about, Letitia," I said rumblingly, for after all Aunt Julia had treated me rather badly at the telephone. "I would almost as soon know that Anna had met foul play, as to realize that we have. We certainly have. We have been disgracefully treated by that Zulu. And you seem charmed. At any rate we should have thought better of her, if we knew that she couldn't come back, simply because she had been murdered."
"Oh, Archie, I'm shocked," declared Letitia in a pained voice. "Such bloodthirsty sentiments! Positively, dear, I feel as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I didn't tell you what I really feared. I thought that perhaps she was vexed with me for not letting her arrange the flowers yesterday, and that, brooding over this, she might have committed suicide. Yes, I thought of that, Archie, and of what a life of remorse would mean to both of us. That was my dread, and now Aunt Julia has removed it, and I feel so deeply grateful."
"Perhaps you are right, old girl," I assented, cheering up, "things might be worse. They are bad enough, though, for if Anna marches off at a moment's notice like that, then they will all probably do the same thing."
"But we shan't think that they have met with foul play," Letitia announced triumphantly. "We shall know that they haven't, and we shan't worry. That is what I like about it. Oh, Archie, I'm so glad. You can go down-town, now, and earn your daily bread. And I shall hie me immediately to—er—what did Aunt Julia call it?—an intelligence office and choose a brand-new cook, somebody nice—"
"To wear the cap with the olive-green ribbons?"