What was that? A fumbling of the catch of her door and a hesitant knock. She knew that uneven touch. She drew the door partly open. In the hall-way, shrinking far back, was Walter, grinning, breathing long, deep breaths through his open mouth.
“What is it, Walter?” Geraldine asked. She was firm with her question, as she knew she must be. A touch of the pity she felt for him would have come through her tone, he would have grasped at it and all would be undone. “Mother said you were to go right to bed, you know.”
The word mother shook him. He leaned forward and looked up and down the corridor. Reassured, he grinned again and nodded his head knowingly.
“Saw yuh!” he managed to gasp.
Geraldine understood without further words. Somewhere on that trip with “Richard” Walter had spied them. She knew, too, that the mother had not, and that Walter was keeping the secret for purposes of his own.
“Saw yuh!” he repeated, and wagged his head, a grinning idiot.
“Where?”
“Museum. Saw yuh goin’ in. We were goin’ out.” Abruptly the boy grew mysterious. His lower jaw shot up into the upper, his eyes popped and the nostrils heaved with his heavy breathing. He wagged a finger. “I fixed ’em. I pointed up street. I pointed and said, ‘Looka that.’ An’ then you and him, you went in.”
A startling smile illumined his face. His mouth sprang open again. He leaned against the farther wall and asked her as plainly as pantomime could, “Now, wasn’t that clever of me? And what do you suppose I’m going to get out of it?”
“Yes, Walter, Mr. Richard and I were in the Museum this afternoon. I told mother all about it. Now, don’t you think you’d better run along? It’s late.”