Graham kissed his prospective nieces, greeted the older members of the family cordially, if less effusively, and put the inevitable question, "Where's Peggy?"
"Oh, at the dressmaker's of course," sighed Mrs. Raymond. "I hope she won't keep the poor child very long. It's so dreadfully warm."
The telephone tinkled, and Dick went to answer it. He scowled as he listened. "Who did you say it was? Oh, wait a minute!" He turned to his mother. "I thought you said Peggy had gone to the dressmaker's."
"She has. She had a fitting at half past three."
"Well, this is the dressmaker, and she says Peggy hasn't come."
"Let me speak to her." Mrs. Raymond crossed to the phone, with an air of expecting to clear up the puzzle immediately. And hardly had she made herself known, when the door opened and Ruth appeared. "What's become of Peggy? She was to call for me a little after three, and I've had my hat on waiting for her nearly two hours."
What had become of Peggy? She had not kept her engagement with the dressmaker, and Ruth knew nothing of her whereabouts. Mrs. Raymond called up Priscilla and Amy, each of whom disavowed having seen Peggy since noon. And then as there seemed nothing better to do, she went on calling neighbors and friends and trades-people, growing more and more puzzled, moment by moment. For no one had seen Peggy.
It finally occurred to Peggy's sister, Alice, to make inquiries in the kitchen. Sally informed her that Miss Peggy had come into the kitchen with her hat on, and had said something about the dressmaker. The new girl, who had been engaged to help out for the few weeks before the wedding, confirmed Sally's story, adding that it was a little after three when Peggy left the house. Obviously Peggy had started out with the intention of keeping her appointment, and obviously she had not done so.
Dinner was ready at six o'clock, but no one was ready for dinner. Peggy's failure to appear at meal-time added to the general consternation. Peggy was by nature prompt and methodical, and she had acted the rôle of cook too often not to realize how the best efforts of that important functionary are frustrated by late arrivals. At quarter past six Mr. Raymond went to the telephone and called up the hospitals one after another. But the hot sleepy day had not been productive of automobile accidents, and the only cases of sun-strokes reported were elderly people, four men and one old woman.
Graham was very pale. A dreadful suspicion was taking shape in his mind. Could it be that, as the second of July drew near, Peggy had found herself unable to face the situation? Perhaps he had asked too much of her when he had urged her accompanying him to South America. He thought of the innumerable ties that bound her to her native land, and yet he had assumed that she would be ready to leave everything and every one she loved, and go with him to a land of strangers. Graham was no more troubled by excessive humility than other popular young men, but in the present emergency he seemed to himself to have put a most preposterous estimate on the value of his own society. He had a horrible conviction that, through his demanding too much, Peggy was lost to him forever.