"Don't say it," begged Nan, with a little laugh. "You mustn't talk about people behind their backs, you know."
"But now our game is spoiled, and we have a whole long morning on our hands," wailed Grace. "I wish I had slept a couple of hours longer."
"I tell you what we'll do," said Walter, with sudden inspiration. "We'll take some fishing tackle—Grace and I have enough to go round—and go out in the little old Bargain Rush to a place I know of where the fish just come trotting up begging to be caught. How about it, girls? Are you on?"
It seemed that they were, enthusiastically so, and half an hour later Grace was declaring that she was sorry about poor Nan's wrist, of course, but if this wasn't better than playing a hot game of tennis and probably getting beaten, her name wasn't Grace Mason, that's all.
Walter was right about the fish—they seemed to enjoy being caught, and when, almost at noon time, they came back to the hotel with Walter bringing up the rear with the result of the morning's sport proudly displayed, strangers followed them with envious eyes and people they knew stopped them to ask where they had found the fish.
As for Nan, she tried hard to enter into the old round of gaieties with her usual enthusiasm, for she knew that to show how worried she was would only spoil the fun of her friends. But to herself she acknowledged that she would not really be able to enjoy anything again until the mystery of those dangerous papers in her bag was finally cleared up and she was free from espionage once more.
Walter seemed to be the only one who really understood her state of mind and when she pleaded a headache that afternoon and broke an engagement with the girls to go to the cocoanut grove for tea, it was Walter who silenced their protests and took her himself up to her room.
"I'm awfully sorry about this," he said, taking the wrist, which had been rubbed with liniment and neatly bandaged by Mrs. Mason, in one of his sunburned hands and patting it awkwardly. "Does it ache very much now?"
"N-no. It doesn't ache at all," said Nan, adding quickly to cover her confusion as she drew her hand away, "I think you had better go down to the girls now, Walter. They will think you've deserted them."
"Oh, all right," said Walter, and perhaps it was only Nan's imagination that made her think he looked hurt. "Be sure and save the first two dances for me to-night."