For one little minute Betty hesitated. Then she flew to the kitchen and returned with the terribly clever place-cards, which had been packed in the basket with Mary’s vase.
“I’ll bring you down a pin,” she volunteered, “if you’ll tell me where to find one. Meanwhile look these over and see if you care to use them. Madeline—Miss Ayres—sent them on the chance. And if you wanted a splendid palmist and crystal-gazer for after dinner, you could have her. The costume is East Indian, with a mystic veil. We would have asked sooner, only we thought—we were afraid——” Betty fled, blushing. There was no use waiting for directions about the pin, because Miss Raymond was bestowing her undivided attention upon the new place-cards.
SHE PEEPED CAUTIOUSLY IN AT THE DOOR
When Betty came back five minutes later she peeped cautiously in at the door to discover Miss Raymond happily engaged in rearranging the table, chuckling softly to herself as she moved about. Betty, who had found Fräulein Wendt and a pearl and amethyst pin, came timidly forward. Miss Raymond looked up at her with an expression of girlish gaiety that made you forget that she was ever cold and distant and hard to please.
“My dear child,” she said, “you’ve made my dinner! These cards hit them all off to the life. Nothing else will matter after such a good start, but bring on your crystal-gazing palmist. Put her in the little red sitting-room. Arrange things as you like. And—Mr. Joram will want to meet Miss Ayres. Couldn’t you ask her to come up later this evening?”
Betty started to explain that Miss Raymond must choose between Madeline and the crystal-gazing palmist, and then remembered the point Madeline had made of the mystic veil that was to keep her interestingly anonymous.
So, “I’m afraid she can’t come to-night, Miss Raymond,” Betty explained demurely. “That is, not until very late. I—I think she’s engaged for to-night.”
“Then I want to engage your catering company for another dinner next week, when Mr. Joram comes back. I’ll let you know the night, and Miss Ayres must come then for dinner.”
Three hours later Betty, tired but triumphant, was assisting the crystal-gazing palmist to extract the pins from the entangling meshes of her mystic veil. The crystal-gazing palmist was also triumphant. Nobody had pierced the disguise of the mystic veil. Miss Raymond had told Mr. Joram all about that queer amusing Miss Ayres, who stopped writing plays for Agatha Dwight to design candle shades for the Tally-ho Tea-Shop. Mr. Joram had inquired sotto voce of the palmist if faculty dinners at Harding were always like this one. Miss Ferris had blushed ignominiously when the palmist found a wedding within a year in her hand. Best of all, George Garrison Hinsdale—Mary fortunately was spending the week with Babe—had assured the palmist solemnly that her character readings were “simply stunning.”