Are Parents People?

by Alice Duer Miller

Miss Waverley entered.

"Mr. Andrews on the telephone, doctor."

Dacer snatched up the telephone as if it were a captured standard, saying as he did so, "Perhaps while I'm telephoning you'll be able to think of the explanation."

But she wasn't able to think at all. She could just stare at him.

"Yes," she heard him saying, "there is a—someone is here at the moment, but I shall be free directly." He hung up the receiver and replaced the telephone on the desk. "Well," he said, "have you got something good ready for me?"

She had one small idea.

"Can't you see that if things were as you think I would hardly have left Mr. Valentine to follow you, at once?"

"Oh, quite a time has gone by!"

"Because I had to walk—I had no money with me. Walk? No, I ran!"

He was affected by the picture of her running after him through the streets, and she pressed on: "Doctor Dacer, I want to tell you why I let my parents and Miss Barton and everyone think that letter to Valentine was from me."