“What note?”
“Why, my line ten minutes ago telling you that you could come on deck now.”
“Thank you! I went to breakfast at seven in the main saloon—about half an hour before you were up, I fancy. I tramped about a while, and have been here since.”
“I see. So you heard that my substitute for you has been really identified as you on board the Corinthian?”
“Nice of her to go through with it,” Roberta granted; “but I hadn’t heard anything except that I hadn’t hurt that Reedy man and his wife at all. They’ve both been found safe; so I only did what I had meant to do.”
“You merely burned down the armory, you mean?”
“Yes—just property; so I saw no reason for keeping cooped up in that stuffy cabin any longer.”
Andy angered. “What’s the game, Roberta?”
“Game?” in surprise.
“You’d better go down and read a few of the last bulletins—or, still better, talk to the wireless operator and learn the more confidential preparations for your reception and entertainment upon your return to England—if you suppose that the British government is so relieved to find that you didn’t burn Reedy and spouse that it’s going to give you a vote of thanks for merely blowing up government property. I told you that you might come on deck, if you took care not to attract too much attention, because no one will be suspecting you while the Corinthian is still at sea. Our friend, the sporty schoolteacher, seems to have come through with an impersonation which had convinced the officers of the Corinthian; but she can’t fool the reception committee at New York. Your face and figure, my dear girl, are easily the most familiar in all the U. S. A. this week. You must know how the newspapers hate to give space to a girl like you who’s been such a quiet little body all summer. I’ll bet there haven’t been more than an average of eight different pictures of you in all poses run in each edition this week. Reporters may meet the Corinthian on the high seas, but I feel that probably no one will board the boat before it picks up its pilot; then two tugs from the less enterprising papers and four from the moving-picture concerns will greet our friend, your doubtful double, at quarantine. They’ll know before they’ve taken a thousand feet of film of her that she isn’t you. Then even the English will guess where you are. If the Corinthian could only run out of gasoline, or blow a tire or crack a cylinder, and let us get in first, all right for us; but if the Corinthian goes on in ahead of us, you—dear girl—are elected to be the example to be made to discourage any more of this foreign-legion stuff in the ranks of the British suffragettes. The home secretary seems to feel that you are most eminently qualified to serve as a stopper for more of our sweet girl graduates crossing over and spending their senior vacations at pillage and arson. Rough of them, undoubtedly; but if the Cumberland comes in second, it’s forcibly fed from a funnel for the rest of your natural youth, my dear.”