Nollie Tresselton drew a deep breath of relief. “After knowing him so well as a boy, you naturally don’t want to say anything more; but you think they’re unsuited to each other.”
“Yes—that’s it. You do see?”
The younger woman considered; then she took Mrs. Clephane by the hand. “I do see. And I’ll try to help—to persuade Anne to put off deciding. Perhaps after she’s seen him it will be easier....”
Nollie was again silent, and Mrs. Clephane understood that, whatever happened, the secret of Chris’s exact whereabouts was to be kept from her. She thought: “Anne’s afraid to have me meet him again,” and there was a sort of fierce satisfaction in the thought.
Nollie was gathering up her wrap and hand-bag. She had to get back to Long Island, she said; Kate understood that she meant to return to the Drovers’. As she reached the door a last impulse of avowal seized the older woman. What if, by giving Nollie a hint of the truth, she could make sure of her support and thus secure Anne’s safety? But what argument against the marriage would be more efficacious on Nollie’s lips than on her own? One only—the one that no one must ever use. The terror lest Nollie, possessed of that truth, and sickened by it, should after all reveal it in a final effort to prevent the marriage, prevailed over Mrs. Clephane’s other fears. Once Nollie knew, Anne would surely get to know; the horror of that possibility sealed the mother’s lips.
Nollie, from the threshold, still looked at her wistfully, expectantly, as if half-awaiting the confession; but Mrs. Clephane held out her hand without a word.
“I must find out where he is.” It was Kate’s first thought after the door had closed on her visitor. If he were in New York—and he evidently was—she, Kate Clephane, must run him down, must get speech with him, before he had been able to see her daughter.
But how was she to set about it? Fred Landers did not even know if he were still with Horace Maclew or not—for the mere fact of Maclew’s not alluding to him while they were together meant nothing, less than nothing. And even if he had left the Maclews, the chances were that Lilla knew where he was, and had already transmitted Anne’s summons.
Mrs. Clephane consulted the telephone book, but of course in vain. Then, after some hesitation, she rang up Horace Maclew’s house in Baltimore. No one was there, but she finally elicited from the servant who answered the telephone that Mrs. Maclew was away on a motor trip. Perhaps Mr. Maclew could be reached at his country-place.... Kate tried the country-place, but Mr. Maclew had gone to Chicago.