For the first time there was something in Jack's voice that brought her chaperon, cousin and friend to a quick realization of their own weakness. For, although Jack's right to sorrow was certainly greater than theirs, until now, had she not been the strongest and most hopeful of them all? And this when two long years of illness had left her far from strong. Possibly through suffering she had learned a finer self-control.
As she moved toward the closed door with her face white as a sheet, suddenly Jean flung herself in her cousin's path.
"Don't go until you have tried eating something," she begged. "We can't bear to have you ill again besides our anxiety about Frieda."
Jean flung open the stateroom door, but stumbled back and was actually caught by Jack.
For there on their threshold stood the Princess, holding by the hand a young girl with a quantity of light hair tumbled loosely about a flushed face. Her blue eyes with their long lashes were looking indescribably sleepy and injured and in her other hand she held a small, gold-linked purse.
Jean sank down on the floor as Jack released her hold on her. Ruth started up with a cry; Olive rose quickly to her feet, only to drop back into her old place again. Therefore it was Jack who reached the figures at the door first. And there her long-controlled self-restraint gave way, as she flung her arms about the newcomer's neck.
"Oh, Frieda, Frieda Ralston," she sobbed. "Where have you been and what has happened to you? Who could have kept you away from us for all these hours. Hours—why you must have been away years!"
But Frieda had now come into the stateroom, with the Princess following her. And though she had kissed Jack dutifully and affectionately enough, she gazed with astonishment and some resentment from one white face to the other.
"I—I haven't been anywhere," she protested. "At least, I have just been asleep."
"Asleep!" Jean whispered the single word over several times. "Asleep!" Yet certainly everything in Frieda's appearance suggested this to be the truth. Her face was as calm and untroubled as a big wax doll's, her color and eyes as serene.