One afternoon—it was ten days after Jesse's arrival in London—Laura suggested to Louise, at luncheon, that, as they had a "clean slate" for the remainder of the daylight hours for the first time in a long while, a tour among the shops, including a visit to the American department store just then established in London, might fill in a part of the time agreeably.
"But I am not insisting upon your going with me, dear," said Laura. "I know your lack of keenness for shopping in London, and I don't blame you, considering how the tradespeople here try to positively make one buy things one doesn't want. So you can very easily escape on the plea that you have letters to write, or that you are tired and want to rest up for the theatre tonight, and I shan't be in the least miffed."
"I'll make it the letter-writing plea, then, Laura," said Louise, "and cling to the truth in spite of the temptation you offer me to fib. I really have a lot of letters to write."
Laura went away in a taxicab directly after luncheon, saying that she would not be gone more than three hours, and Louise, at the desk in the sitting room of their suite, began a letter to her father, from whom, forwarded by John Blythe, she had lately received a long and affectionate letter, expressing his anxiety to see her and the hope that he might so arrange his business affairs as to permit of his visiting New York late in the Autumn.
About half an hour after she had begun writing the telephone bell rang.
"His this Miss Tre'arne?" Louise heard a man's voice, "but Mrs. Stedham says that you are that of an upper servant," in the telephone.
"Yes, I am Miss Treharne—what is it?" she replied.
"Begging pardon, Miss Tre'arne," went on the man's voice, "but Mrs. Stedham says that you are not to be halarmed. Mrs. Stedham, Miss, was taken slightly ill in a taxicab—nothing serious, Miss, she hasks me to hassure you—and she is now with Mrs. 'Ammond, at Number Naught-Fourteen Curzon Street. Mrs. Stedham, Miss, hinsists that you be not halarmed, and wishes you to come to 'er at Mrs. 'Ammond's at once. This is Mrs. 'Ammond's butler that is speaking."
"Tell Mrs. Stedham, please, that I shall come at once," said Louise, instantly aroused by the thought that something serious might have happened to Laura. "What is the number and street again, please? And you are sure Mrs. Stedham has had no accident or is not seriously ill?"
"It is Naught-Fourteen Curzon Street, Miss Tre'arne," came the reply, "hand Mrs. Stedham 'erself hasks that you be hassured that she is only slightly hindisposed."