“Any news of Irene?”
“Didn’t you bring any?” she asked. And before they could answer she went on saying how sure she was that they must have news or they wouldn’t have flown all the way to New York. She could tell they had been flying as they were still dressed for it.
“We were in too much of a hurry to bother changing these togs at the hangar where I left the plane,” Arthur explained.
“That’s all right,” Judy murmured, trying to shake off the queer feeling she had that he was some stranger.
“We do have news,” Horace told her finally, “but, I’m sorry to say, it’s not news of Irene.”
“What is it then?”
“News of her mother. We thought it might help you find her. I mean Irene. Her mother, of course, is dead.”
“I knew that,” Judy said. “But she has relatives. I’m sure your news will help me.” Taking their things, she invited the boys to sit down and share her breakfast while they told her. She poured out the extra coffee Mary had made and pushed her brother into a chair. Arthur found his own and soon all three were seated beside the table. The boys explained their delay.
They had expected to arrive a day earlier but when Horace and Honey called at the sanitarium they found that Mr. Lang was gone. Immediately, Horace telephoned Arthur who agreed to help search for him in his plane. It would have been easy to find him if, as they expected, he had taken the straight road for New York. But his crippled legs gave out and, toward evening, they found him helpless in the edge of a deep wood. Here, while they were waiting for the ambulance to take him back to the hospital, Mr. Lang told his story.
When Tom Lang was a young man, only eighteen or twenty, he had worked as a chauffeur for a wealthy family in Brooklyn. The daughter of the house gave parties, a great many of them, and after the parties Tom would drive the whole crowd of young people home. He never paid much attention to them until, one night, a new girl came to a party. She was different from all the others. She had glamour, radiance, all the qualities a man wants in a girl. But the young chauffeur dared not hope that she would have any use for him. She only came to the one party—like a princess in her golden dress and slippers. He took her home and remembered the house. After that he would drive past it, always hoping that she would see him.