“I can’t. I don’t know so very much about it myself; but what I do know is a sacred trust, and not to be divulged to a horde of rattle-pates. Now, will you make yourselves scarce? Go and write letters, go and darn stockings,—anything, but let me go to bed.”
Finally, Patty shooed the girls away, and locking her door against their possible return, she began to make ready for bed.
She glanced at her watch as she sat at her toilette-table. It was exactly midnight.
And at that moment her telephone rang.
“Those girls!” she thought to herself. “I’ll not answer it!”
But the bell kept ringing, and Patty took down the receiver with a soft “Hello.”
“That you, Patty?” and her astonished ears recognised Philip Van Reypen’s voice.
“For mercy’s sake! Where are you, Phil?”
“Home. In New York. Can you hear me all right?”
“Yes, plainly. How did you know I was here?”