“And now,” said Helen, making a face at the boys, “clear out of here, both of you! I know Ruthie wants to rest for a while before she has all that crowd of actors and cameramen and what not coming down on her!”
“I suppose,” said Chess, looking doleful, “that business must spoil our pleasure some time. Why not now!”
Ruth laughed.
“It will be pretty nearly all business with Tom and me from now on,” she said. “But that needn’t prevent you and Helen from having all the good times you like.”
“Maybe not,” sighed Helen. “But Chess’s business will stand horribly in the way of pleasure. I presume for a while I’m doomed to play all by myself. Hustle your old man, will you, Chess?”
“If he’s to be hustled, yes. But his kind are sometimes annoyingly deliberate.”
“Oh, well, go to it, you busy bees, and I will laze gloriously while I look on with pity for all of you. Me for a show this afternoon.”
When the boys had gone to their rooms, only a door or two further down the corridor, Helen asked Ruth if she had really seen Charlie Reid in the hotel lobby.
“I can’t be sure,” Ruth answered, her voice low and troubled. “I just caught a glimpse of a man that looked like him, but as I turned around he dodged into the door of the writing room.”
“That would seem to show that it was really Charlie Reid you saw,” Helen pointed out. “For Charlie would surely be careful about letting you know he was following you just yet.”