"How?" she asked, in a stopped-up voice, dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief.
"You can leave on Tuesday afternoon at the same time and go to a hotel."
"A hotel!" She stopped dabbing, extremely surprised, as if he had suggested going to something she had never heard of before.
"Yes, not one of the big ones; a quiet place where you're not liable to run into anyone who may recognize you. I know of the very thing, not long opened, in the Mission. You leave for the train as you intended, but instead of going to the ferry, you go there. I'll take the rooms for you. All you'll have to do will be to write your name in the book—say, Miss Brown—and go up to your apartment. Order your dinner up there and your breakfast the next morning. I'll have a cab sent round for you at half-past eleven that'll take you straight to the ferry, and I'll send your tickets and trunk check to your rooms before that. There'll be nothing for you to do but cross on the boat and go into your stateroom on the train."
This was all very smooth and clear. It was proof of Chrystie's unpractical trend of thought that her comment was an uneasy,
"A hotel in the Mission?"
"Yes, a new place, very quiet and decent. I heard of it from some people who are living there. I'll not come to see you, but I'll phone over in the evening and find out how you're getting on. And the next morning I'll be on the platform at Oakland, watching out for you."
"But you won't speak to me?"
"Not then. In the train we might meet—just accidentally run into one another. And you'll say, 'Why, there's Mr. Mayer! How odd. How d'ye do, Mr. Mayer.'" He bowed with a mincing imitation of Chrystie's best society manner. "'I didn't expect to see you here.'"
She laughed delightedly, nestling against his shoulder.