“It’s all right,” she said, a trifle absent-mindedly, and rising abruptly she went to the telephone.
She called a number and presently Helen heard her talking in a foreign language.
Helen could understand no word, but she was quick-witted and it seemed to her that Mrs. Lummis was divulging important information to some one exceedingly interested.
At last she caught what was, she felt sure, the house number of the Fairfield home.
Frightened and appalled, she sat wondering what she must do.
She had heard more or less spy talk, but she knew nothing of such matters definitely. However she felt she must warn Patty, and tell her what she had inadvertently done. The horror and regret of her deed was almost swallowed up in the necessity for immediate action.
Helen was at her best in an emergency, and her sometimes careless and blundering habits didn’t affect her mental efficiency. Her mind worked rapidly and even while Mrs. Lummis was talking, she was planning a way to circumvent her.
At last the vivacious lady returned to the table, with a murmured excuse for her lengthy absence.
“That’s all right,” Bumble said, smiling, “and I’m going to ask a similar indulgence. May I telephone, please,—as I’ve a bothersome dressmaker’s engagement that I want to break.”
“So sorry,” said Mrs. Lummis, looking at her shrewdly, “but the telephone is out of order. The storm, you know. Just as I finished talking, it went dead, and we can’t use it till it’s fixed.”