“Save room for real American ice cream,” advised her hostess, and, when dinner was over, “I’m going to tuck you into bed right away, you poor thing. It’s only seven and you can sleep till ten or eleven. Then I’ll wake you to go home. Come on, my room is at the back, on the garden, you won’t hear a single drum or whistle or even a taxi horn.”
Cynthia was too weary to utter more than a feeble protest. “It seems kind of funny to break into a stranger’s house, eat their hash and go to sleep in their bed,” she murmured as she slipped off her shoes.
“Take off your dress. That’s right. I’ll just throw a blanket over you and open this window a little. Sleep doucement!”
Cynthia started to call, “Don’t fail to wake me,” but must have been asleep before she could speak the words. At least when she awoke an apparent few minutes later the sentence still hung unuttered, in her mind. She stretched, blinked, fumbled for her thoughts, then glared at the window. It was full daylight!
Frantically she bent to look at her watch. It had stopped. Then it was next day? The little clock on the bureau said “eight o’clock” and then Alice, tousle headed, in bright pink candy-striped pyjamas peeped round the edge of the door.
“Hello you! Gosh how you did sleep! Are you by any chance a descendant of the Sleeping Beauty? I phoned your hotel so they wouldn’t think you had got run over, and went in to sleep with Mother.”
She pranced into the room and perched on the foot of the bed. “It’s a swell day. And things started to move again today. You’ll find your little editor chap, no doubt. Will you have your breakfast on a tray in here, milady, and go back to sleep again?”
“Goodness no! Oh, I feel fine.” Cynthia swung her feet out of bed.
It was nearly noon, however, when Cynthia sent her name to Mr. Culbert, the editor of Little Ones’ Magazine. He came out immediately, a plump little man with a round jolly face and held out both hands, beaming his welcome.
“Such a shame you landed here in the middle of the holiday. I was down in the south of France with the owner of the magazine, but got back last night. Now, my dear child, about those covers of yours, I suppose you want to get right at them. About models ... that’s going to be a bit difficult. Children, you know. ...”