"So do I," agreed Ruth. "I never tire of Emerson."
Mr. DeVere was surprised when he heard about the accident to Merley.
"I can't understand it," said the girls' father. "He must have been hurt, and yet—er—was he in a sensible condition, Russ?"
"Oh, yes, he seemed to be himself, all right," the young moving picture operator replied, thoughtfully. "I haven't gotten to the bottom of it myself."
And indeed it developed that there was a strange plot back of the accident—a plot which involved the moving picture girls in an amazing way, as will soon appear.
But puzzle over the odd accident as they might, neither Mr. DeVere, his daughters, nor Russ could understand what it involved.
"At any rate, as you say, Ruth," the actor remarked with a smile, "there is some compensation. He may not annoy me for some time; and, meanwhile, I may think of a plan to prove I really paid that money."
"I hope so, Daddy!" she exclaimed. "Is your throat any better?"
"Yes, much," he replied with a smile. "Dr. Rathby is going to try a new kind of spray treatment, and I had the first one this afternoon. It helped me wonderfully."
"That's good!" exclaimed Alice.