But Elsie kept looking back over her shoulder at Kate, resting on the sofa—questioningly. She was speculating: “Had Kate taken her hint of fairies in the orchard house seriously? Was it so much on her mind that she was imagining things? Or had Kate once really seen a fairy, and Elsie in the mirror had reminded her?”
When they left the shop and stood on the step looking about for a taxi Elsie asked Kate eagerly, “Did you really see a fairy once? Where? When?”
“Yes, Mother and I. But we both saw it differently. And now—now, how could it have been a fairy? Why, it was you. But I promised Mother not to talk about it.”
At the mention of Kate’s mother the cold look came back to Elsie’s face. She turned away with feigned indifference while Bertha lifted her hand to summon a taxi.
CHAPTER XI
KATE TAKES THE HELM
But the taxi driver Bertha had signalled shook his head, giving a sidewise jerk toward the back of his cab to indicate that he had a fare. There was the young man of the brown hat and polka-dotted tie looking away as though he was not one bit aware of them and smoking a cigarette.
“Well, why do they stand still, then!” Bertha complained. “How could I know!”
Almost at once, however, another taxi came cruising up the hill, and they were soon in, whirling away toward Miss Frazier’s club. It was now almost one o’clock, and they were quite ready for luncheon.
Though Kate did not actually lean out to see whether the detective’s taxi was following, she felt quite sure that it was. “And he’ll be wherever we go all day,” she reflected. “What does he expect us to do—or Elsie, rather? What could she do with Bertha and me along, anyway? It’s all just too curious! And I don’t like it a bit. It makes me angry for Elsie. It isn’t fair to her! I wonder what Mother and the boys would think if they knew I was riding around Boston to-day, buying gorgeous clothes, conversing with princesses, almost fainting, and being shadowed by a detective!
Both girls, lunching in Miss Frazier’s club, felt themselves quite emancipated, really adult! Elsie wrote out their orders on a little pad tendered by a gray-clad waitress, and acted hostess throughout. Kate very much admired her worldly air, her poise and decision, and the way she knew the French names for things. Apparently she was quite accustomed to such complicated menus. Kate was proud of Elsie, proud and stirred. Aunt Katherine herself could not have conducted things better.