“’Squaint?”
“Oh, go to sleep, dear, and don’t let my alarm disturb you. I’m putting it under the big bowl right at my ear. Set for——”
But the monotonous breathing from the alcove made further explanation unnecessary.
In her own bed Gloria found sleep or did not find it within reach. Hours, it seemed, she lay there, thinking. She changed line and paragraph of the essay over and over again, even snapping on her light to note some subtle phrase that might escape her memory during sleep, if sleep ever came.
Finally, anxious for rest, she deliberately turned her thoughts to Jack.
Why was she so fearful her stepmother would divulge family matters? What was so secret about it all?
“And she doesn’t seem to know anything about the black pearls, or whatever the anonymous necklace is made of,” she decided. That strain of thought travelled far before the weary girl checked it. Then the new angle, Mary’s strange remark, came up for investigation.
“Could she have some secret interest in Jack?” Gloria questioned. “I always fancied she hovered over her, somehow, especially since that day in the dressing room when the girls openly discussed the loud spoken Steppy, who had taken Jack away so suddenly.”
For some time vague fancies formed as explaining this sudden interest of Mary’s. She remembered how outspoken Mary had been in Jack’s defense. How she had asked more than one girl if she had seen the Steppy. But no one had.
“And when Trixy came in from the ride,” persisted Gloria’s abused brain, “she thought she saw someone, who might be Mary, hiding back of the hedge, just as Jack and the other Rough Riders dashed in?”