"What?" she asked with a puzzled look.
"Let me go with you, girlie?"
"Oh, Jim, if you only would, I'd be in heaven! You have never been across. I'd chaperone you and show you everything you ought to see. Please go! Say you will! You've said you would, and you can't say no—you're going, you're going!"
"I will!" he said with decision. "You've booked your passage?"
"Yes, but I'll change it to suit you. Oh, goodie, goodie! You're going, you're going! I'm perfectly happy!"
He found business which required a week and booked his passage with Harriet's on a Cunarder which sailed in ten days.
A week later Nan and Bivens returned to their New York house. The papers were full of stories of his failing health. A sensational evening sheet issued an extra announcing that he was dying. The other papers denied the report as a fake. All reporters were denied admission to the Riverside home, and in consequence the press devoted five times the space to his illness they otherwise would have given.
Two days after her arrival Nan telephoned to Stuart.
"You must come up to see Cal to-night," she said earnestly, "he is asking for you."
"Is he really dangerously ill?" Stuart interrupted.