"I'll just have to wait about the others, Madame," she said, with a sigh. "I've really bought more now than I intended."
"I hope zat Mademoiselle will come often!" laughed the French woman.
Back through the streets, now covered with snow, hastened Alice, tripping lightly, and now and then, when she thought no one was watching her, she took a little run and slide, as in the days of her childhood. Not that she was much more than a child still, being only a little over fifteen. Ruth was two years her senior, but Ruth considered herself quite "grown up."
"I wonder if daddy has come back yet?" Alice mused, as she hastened on to the apartment. "That looks like Russ Dalwood ahead of me," she went on, referring to the son of the neighbor across the hall. Russ "filmed," or made the moving pictures for the company by whom Mr. DeVere and his daughters were engaged. "Yes, it is Russ!" the girl exclaimed. "He has probably come right from the studio, and he'll know about daddy. Russ! Russ!" she called, as she came nearer to the young man.
He turned, and a welcoming smile lighted his face.
"Oh, hello, Alice!" he greeted, genially. "Where's Ruth?"
"Just for that I shan't tell you! Don't you want to walk with me?" she asked, archly. "Why must you always ask for Ruth when I meet you alone?"
"I didn't! I mean—I—er——"
"Oh, don't try to make it any worse!" she laughed at his discomfiture. "Let it go at that! Did you just come from the studio?"
"Yes, and we had a hard day of it. I forget how many thousand feet of film I reeled off."