“Eleanor says it’s Beulah, and the more I think of it the more I think that she’s probably right.”
“That would be a nice mess, wouldn’t it?” Gertrude suggested. “Remember how frank we were with her about his probable lack of judgment, Margaret? I don’t covet the sweet job of breaking it to either one of them.”
Nevertheless she assisted Margaret to break it to them both late that same afternoon at Beulah’s apartment.
“I’ll find her,” Peter said briefly. And in response to the halting explanation of her disappearance that Margaret and Gertrude had done their best to try to make plausible, despite its elliptical nature, he only said, “I don’t see that it makes any difference why she’s gone. She’s gone, that’s the thing that’s important. No matter how hard we try we can’t really figure out her reason till we find her.”
“Are you sure it’s going to be so easy?” Gertrude asked. “I mean—finding her. She’s a pretty determined little person when she makes up her 274 mind. Eleanor’s threats are to be taken seriously. She always makes good on them.”
“I’ll find her if she’s anywhere in the world,” Peter said. “I’ll find her and bring her back.”
Margaret put out her hand to him.
“I believe that you will,” she said. “Find out the reason that she went away, too, Peter.”
Beulah pulled Gertrude aside.
“It wasn’t Peter, was it?” she asked piteously. “She had some one else on her mind, hadn’t she?”