“You can go away again. No, we have no need of you, the telephone call was a mistake.”
Finally when the police had disappeared without requiring a great deal of persuasion, for the second time Vera followed her unknown companion upstairs.
“You understand, child, it would have been the greatest interruption to our present plans if I had not permitted the thief to escape. Some one would have had to appear in court and doubtless Polly Burton would have had newspaper reporters coming to the house at all hours. They would have liked a story in which a woman of her prominence played a part.”
Fifteen minutes later, having presented the unexpected guest with the tea she had requested, Vera was sitting beside the tea table waiting to satisfy her further needs, when she caught the sound of a key being turned in the lock of the front door downstairs and the next instant Mrs. Burton’s voice, followed by Bettina Graham’s, calling for her.
With a hurried apology and really fearful that her autocratic companion might attempt to detain her, Vera ran out of the room.
Over the banisters she could see Bettina Graham, who had just arrived from Washington, and Mrs. Burton, who had gone down to the Pennsylvania station to meet her.
Standing near Bettina was a girl whom Vera had never seen before.
As soon as she joined them Bettina introduced her explaining:
“Vera, this is Mary Gilchrist, who is going abroad to drive a motor in France. She had no friends with whom she could cross, and as we were intending to sail on the same steamer, I suggested when we met in Washington the other day that she might like to join our Camp Fire unit. At the depot I introduced her to Tante, who of course insisted that she come home with us rather than stay in a hotel alone.”
During this conversation, Mrs. Richard Burton, the Sunrise Camp Fire guardian of former days, having passed by the group of girls, was making her way upstairs alone. She had moved so quickly that, in her effort to be polite to Bettina’s new friend, Vera had no opportunity to mention the presence of another stranger in the house. When she did murmur something, Mrs. Burton did not hear.