"Indeed I won't be lonely. Don't you worry about me a minute!" agreed Patricia. "I've heaps of things to do."
When Captain Meade had gone, Patricia flew about, busily occupying herself with unpacking her trunk and making her bedroom a little more homelike with a few of her own personal knickknacks and belongings. When this occupation could be prolonged no further, she sank down in a cosy chair by the table in the living-room, intending to read a magazine, but in reality to dream delightfully over the events of the day and her father's strange, half-exhilarating, half-terrifying hints.
A great hotel full of people,—literally hundreds of them,—coming and going continually,—some of them friends, some of them enemies, perhaps,—and she, Patricia Meade in the center of it, she and her father the very center of a whirlpool of plots and danger, perhaps! Then more sober thought reminded her that there was, in all probability, no likelihood of anything particularly thrilling except in her own imagination, and she laughed at herself for romancing so foolishly. They would have a very delightful holiday, she and her father. He would accomplish safely and without difficulty, the mission that occupied him, they would return home to a reunited household at the end of the summer,—and then he would go away, 'over there' again.
At this point in her revery, she suddenly dropped into an unpleasant depression and decided to send for a sandwich and a glass of milk, write a tiny note to her mother and go to bed. All at once she realized how very tired she was and how the excitement and exhilaration had all evaporated, leaving only weariness in their place. Rather timidly she telephoned her order to the office and sat down again to await its arrival.
Five minutes later, she answered a knock at the door, to find the grinning, implike bell-boy of their first encounter, standing there with a tray.
"Didn't have no chicken left, ma'am, so I got you tongue. Best I could do!" he vouchsafed.
"Oh, thanks! That will do just as well," she replied, then something impelled her to inquire, "Do you always answer the calls in this corridor?"
"Yep,—at least I try to work it that way. I got a reason!" he ended darkly.
"A reason? What is it?" she asked idly.