“You have never come across a girl named Margaret Detweiler, have you, Miss Horton?” she asked. “I want to find her if I can while I am in Philadelphia.”
The secretary shook her head.
“No, I don’t think so. You might look through the book, though. I can’t remember all the transients who have stopped here at Stoddard House.”
“Naturally,” agreed Mary Louise, and she turned the pages eagerly. But of course she did not find the name. Coincidences like that don’t often happen, and besides, she reasoned, if she did find it, it wouldn’t do her much good. That wouldn’t tell her where Margaret was now.
“Come into the music room with me,” said Mrs. Hilliard. “I see one of our newest arrivals here—a young girl who came only last week. She can’t be more than nineteen or twenty. I think you’d like each other.”
The girl, an attractive brunette with a gay manner and a little too much lipstick, was standing beside the radio, turning the dials. She looked up as Mrs. Hilliard and Mary Louise entered the room.
“Miss Brooks, I want you to meet a friend of mine—Miss Gay,” said Mrs. Hilliard. “Perhaps I’d better say ‘Pauline’ and ‘Mary Louise,’ because I know you young people don’t bother with last names.”
The girls smiled at each other, and the manager went towards the door.
“Would you be good enough to take care of Mary Louise—introduce her to any of the other guests who come in—Miss Brooks? I have to go back to the desk, for the secretary has gone home.”
“Certainly,” agreed Pauline immediately. She turned on some dance music. “What do you say we dance?” she asked Mary Louise. “And does everybody call you by both names?”