“Oh, well—you’ll see,” replied the girl, evasively. “I told you there was some one else in there.”
Frances opened the door—and Connie noted that she too lifted her head and stared a little, and then cautiously closed the door behind her. She pondered this as she returned to her machine, and she curled her thin lip when she took up the copies of the first act of an amateur’s romantic play, to underscore the business directions with red ink, and sew on brown paper covers. Intuition told her that a much better drama was afoot, here under her very nose.
Inside her office, Miss Bailey surrendered herself to frank astonishment at what she beheld.
Bestowed in obvious discomfort upon her sofa, behind an extraordinary bank of potted plants and bright, costly greenhouse flowers, was a young man fast asleep. Her eye took in as well her sister, who sat near the head of the sofa, but she could wait. The interest centered in this sleeping stranger, who made himself so much at home in the shelter of his remarkable floral barricade. She moved round the better to scrutinize his face, which was tilted up as if proudly held even in slumber. Upon examination she recognized the countenance; and in a swift moment of concentration tried to think what his presence might signify. Then she turned to her sister, and lifted her calm brows in mute inquiry.
“Oh, my dear—what splendid business!” whispered Cora, her glance beaming upward from the sofa to the standing figure. “And mind, Frank, I’m in it! I’m in it up to my neck! I sent him to you, dear.”
The girl looked down at them both, and deliberated before she spoke. “If you brought him here,” she said, “I think you’d better take him away again. I can let you out by this other door. Let us have no more publicity than necessary.”
“But you don’t in the least understand!” protested Cora, with her finger raised in an appeal for quiet tones.
“No, I don’t understand. I don’t want to understand,” replied Frances coldly. “There’s one thing you don’t understand either, Cora: This is my typewriting office; it isn’t a greenroom at all.”
“Then it well might be,” retorted the other, with a latent grin. “Anything greener than its owner I never saw. Now listen—don’t be a silly cuckoo! I met the youngster last night—and I worked him up till he was mad to learn where you were to be found. I told him—and then I went home, and I couldn’t sleep for thinkin’ of you, dear—and so I turned out at some extraordinary hour this mornin’—it is mornin’ by this time, isn’t it?—and I came here, just to tell you that he was askin’ after you—and I come in here—and lo! here’s the bird on his little nest!—and see the flowers he’s brought from Covent Garden for you!—and so I sit here like Patience on a monument, afraid to wink an eyelash, so’s not to wake him till you come. That’s what I’ve done for you, dear—and presently, if you don’t mind, I’d like to hear what you’ll do for me.”
Frances put a knee upon the chair before her, and rested with her hands upon its back. She sighed a little, and bit her lips. A troubled look came into her gray eyes.