They shook hands with the air of being old acquaintances, and he introduced her to us as “Miss Frayne, from my home town.”
She went into the office, registered, and sent her bag to her room. Then she asked Rob if she might have a talk with him.
They walked away together down to the shore and she was talking to him quite excitedly. Rob suddenly stopped, threw back his head and laughed in the way that it is good to hear a man laugh.
“Miss Frayne must be a wit,” observed Beth dryly.
I looked at her keenly. Something in her eyes as she gazed after the retreating couple told me that Silvia’s surmise was right, and that Miss Frayne might be just the little punch needed to send Beth over the danger point.
“I rather incline to the belief that Ptolemy told the truth in the first place,” she continued, and then looked disappointed because I did not contradict her.
I decided not to reveal, for the present anyway, what I knew of Miss Frayne, of whom I had often heard Rob speak.
“She can’t be going to stay long,” said Silvia hopefully. “She didn’t bring a trunk.”
“She doesn’t need one,” replied Beth. “She is probably one of those mannish girls who believe in a skirt and a few waists for a wardrobe.”