Hence the polished society woman from the East had to confess herself vanquished in her effort to help Mr. Alexander provide a lady’s maid for his wife. On the way back to the hotel Polly made a suggestion which Eleanor thought would prove very exciting, if not practical, for Mrs. Alexander’s future peace and personal comfort.
“Why waste time in finding a maid for Dodo’s mother when we can get a first-class Indian servant, who will cook, pack, wash, and do everything else for the men, when they have to camp in the mountains; then he can work for Mrs. Alexander, when the men are with us and have no need of the Guide.”
“But, Polly, Mrs. Alexander will not need an Indian to cook or wash for her—she wants a maid to look after her comfort in the hotels along the beaten track,” argued Eleanor.
“If she annexes herself and her wardrobe trunks to our select party, she’ll have to put up with discomforts in Arizona, even as we are willing to do,” declared Polly, impatiently.
“Well, I’ve done all I could to smooth away the obstacles from little Mr. Alexander’s pathway—now it is up to his wife to find her own maid,” complained Mrs. Courtney.
That evening Eleanor amused the men by describing the visit at the employment office and the interviews with sundry maids. Mr. Alexander felt deeply obliged to Mrs. Courtney, but she begged him to forget it, since she had not succeeded as she had promised him.
About eight o’clock that same evening, a commotion outside the hotel entrance announced the arrival of Mrs. Alexander and her daughter. This time, the commotion was caused by the taxi running head on into a costly limousine which was waiting for its owner. Not only the scene between the two chauffeurs, but also the hysterical screams from the lady inside the cab, drew a crowd that refused to be dispersed until an officer came running up to arrest the culprits—should he find any.
Jack and Tom had been the first of the loungers in the hotel-lobby to hurry to the street and watch the altercation between the two drivers; but the moment they saw Dodo gazing anxiously from the taxi window, they sprang across the sidewalk and quickly opened the door.
“Thank goodness, Jack, you’re here to get mother out of this!” cried Dodo, in relief. Then she managed to slip her arm underneath her mother’s, and urged her to get up and out of the cab.
Mrs. Alexander spied handsome Jack, and quickly decided she must lean upon the strong right arm of a young man, instead of accepting her daughter’s equally strong arm. With a rolling of her eyes between pencilled eyelashes, and a plaintive gasp meant to enlist Jack’s sympathy, Mrs. Alexander permitted herself to be coaxed from the cab, and half-carried into the hotel. How she loved all this confusion, which she considered better than nothing, in the absence of other ways of announcing her arrival!