“That is a very good idea,” said Mr. Ridgeway. “Of course if this was merely an affair of those crown jewels, it would be easy to outwit our friends but those jewels mean little or nothing to the man who calls himself Smith. What he wants are the papers. Either he, or someone back of him, is staging a little revolution, I think, and the papers are their most important weapon. Who is Smith? Can’t you make a guess, O’Brien?”
O’Brien shook his head. “I can’t, sir,” he said regretfully. “All I want is some good-luck fairy to point him out to me.”
“You will find him, never fear,” said Mr. Ridgeway. “You have done too many clever jobs for me to feel worried about this one. Well, Lawrence, I will be glad to have you here with me. When will you come?”
“He is here now,” laughed O’Brien. “I take no more chances. I’m like yourself, sir; I’m thinkin’ that the matter of these papers is an affair of nations.”
Mr. Ridgeway looked grave. “I can only say that the safe transfer of those papers is all that can possibly keep this country out of another war as destructive and as deadly as the last. They have clever spies, and the only thing they have not surmised, guessed at, or proved about this journey is the identity of the pilot. As I said at the first, Lawrence is protected by his youth.” The great man sighed. “Lawrence, I wish you were my son!” he said.
“A nice kid,” commended O’Brien with a twinkle. “But hard to manage, sir, and tellin’ too little.”
For four days Lawrence was a guest in the big house, spending most of the time with his host and growing more and more devoted to the kindly, shrewd man. He often repeated his regret that there was no son to carry on his name, and one night in a confidential mood told Lawrence that there had been two little boys.
“But we lost them both when they were scarcely more than babies,” he said brokenly. “I cannot talk about it.” He stopped and Lawrence, respecting his grief, turned away, not daring to offer the sympathy and affection he felt.
The subject was never referred to again, but now Lawrence knew the pathetic meaning of the two small, beautiful faces which had been rendered in glass and which formed the central medallion in a great stained glass window in the library. Near it, on the wall, was a portrait of Mrs. Ridgeway, painted only the year before. It was a most gracious figure, with a sweet, beautiful, appealing face, full of sorrow bravely concealed. It held a strange fascination for Lawrence, who found himself looking at it by the hour. Mr. Ridgeway never spoke of the picture, although Lawrence knew that no two people ever loved each other better than the great man and his beautiful wife. That she had been sent away to avoid possible harm was clear to Lawrence, and he felt that Mr. Ridgeway was very lonely. Lawrence tried to show him all the little attentions that he could think of, and it pleased him to see how eagerly Mr. Ridgeway accepted them. Only once in awhile a sigh told the boy that the big heart still mourned for the two little fellows who had met an untimely death so long ago. But no further word was spoken on the subject.
The fifth day of Lawrence’s visit fell on Tuesday. He took his bath and hurriedly dressing, went down the broad stairs three steps at a time. For the cleverest sky pilot in the world was hungry just as though he had been an ordinary boy with no thought above the Saturday football game or a coming exam. He fell upon the delicious breakfast with an amount of energy that made Mr. Ridgeway smile with pleasure.