Rebecca's Promise

by Frances R. Sterrett

"Aren't you going to say that you are glad to see me?" He took the hand she was far too surprised to offer him.

"Where did you come from?" She didn't seem able to find her every-day voice and had to use her Sunday one, which shook a little. "Are you a prisoner, too?" Rebecca Mary hoped that he was. Although there were four men at Riverside all devoted to her, you see she was not satisfied. She wanted a fifth, even if this fifth man did make her heart beat so uncomfortably. "There is a very jolly crowd of prisoners here," she added encouragingly. "I'm sure you will like them."

Richard looked from her sunburnt fingers to her face, which was a most adorable pink, and knew that he had not been mistaken—she was just what he had thought she was.

"If I had known you were here I should have come long ago," he said quite as if he could come and go as he pleased. Evidently he had not met stern Major Martingale. "How could you run away without leaving a word for me?" he went on reproachfully. "I tried to make old Pierson tell me where you were, but all she would say was that Granny had taken you on a motor trip. I thought that meant Seven Pines and called up the house only to be told by Mrs. Swenson that for the first time in seven years old Mrs. Simmons had disappointed her. She had promised to come to Otillie's wedding and the wedding was on and Mrs. Simmons hadn't come. Mrs. Swenson didn't know whether to be mad or worried. And I was in the same boat. I wrote to Mifflin, and when I didn't hear a word from you I thought that perhaps you had decided that you didn't like bankers. I sure was sore!" He laughed softly as if now, with Rebecca Mary's hand still in his, it was rather amusing to remember how sore he had been.

Guilty consciousness was plainly written on Rebecca Mary's pink and white forehead. "It wasn't my fault." She made the best defense she could. "I didn't have a minute in which to send any one word. And since we have been here we couldn't send words. You must remember that I have been a prisoner." And she laughed as if it were the greatest fun in the world to be a prisoner.

"A prisoner in my great-grandmother's old home," smiled Richard, who had not been half as surprised to see her as Rebecca Mary had expected him to be. Indeed, he had not seemed surprised at all. "How do you like my great-grandmother?" he asked in a whisper as if he did not wish his great-grandmother to hear Rebecca Mary's answer.

"We're the greatest friends," she whispered back. "And I like your great-grandfather's old house enormously, but I don't quite like to be a prisoner."

"You'll be given your freedom soon," promised Richard, quite as if he knew all about her case. "Things are moving right along out there." He nodded in the direction of the shop. "I shouldn't be surprised if you were released very soon now."

"Are you interested in this mysterious experiment, too? Granny and I are dying to know about it for all that we are sure of is that an aviator, a chemical engineer and an electrical engineer and a United States Army officer and a Luxembourg count are working on it with a lot of Waloo mechanics. It is a very confusing combination. Major Martingale insists that it is, oh, frightfully important and that Germany is reaching out grabbing hands for it. He scowls like a pirate if we ask any questions at all. At first we thought it must have something to do with aëroplanes, on account of Peter, you know, and then we thought of a wireless something, but when the Luxembourg count was tangled up with it we stopped trying to imagine what it was. We hear the weirdest noises and smell the weirdest smells but they don't tell us anything." She smiled expectantly and waited for him to tell her all about the great experiment, but when he never told her a word but just smiled at her she crinkled her nose and went on more slowly: "And now if a banker is added to the staff we shall be more hopelessly at sea than ever."