“Dogs have to run faster,” explained Nora breathlessly, when Cap won by more than he needed to establish his claim. “If you could not run faster than human beings, Cap, you could never have been made a Red Cross messenger, as you were in the awful war.”
The arrival of Alma cut short the encomium. Salutations were brief for both were eager to “tell each other a lot of things.”
“Alma, do you think you could keep a secret?” The question was so trite and time worn Alma smiled before answering in the affirmative.
“Because,” continued Nora, “this is the biggest secret I have ever had, and Barbara and I have had a great many.”
“I have to have secrets,” returned Alma, “because none of the girls seem to understand me. They tease, you know, they almost made me homesick one night; they kept teasing and teasing about the prince; and Miss Beckwith had a hard time to make me stop crying.”
Nora winced. “Well, this isn’t that sort of a secret,” she said presently. “It’s about our attic.”
“What about it?”
“Oh, it’s a lot to tell. We had better sit on the big log under the chestnut tree and be comfortable before I start.”
Then began the story of the first night at Wildwoods when Nora was determined to sleep in the attic. Many an exclamation of surprise was thrown in by the more practical Alma, but this in no way turned the narrator from her course. She sent thrill after thrill up and down Alma’s spine, and she even voiced a suspicion that Vita might have a member of “some den of thieves hidden in the attic, although she is the soul of honesty,” Nora was particular to state.
But it was the incident that occurred the night they went to Lenox that really caused Alma to exclaim tragically: