CHAPTER IV
"I thought of a lot of new things for my characters to say, while I was coming up from Kentucky on the train, and I want to put them in." Miss Adair further tortured Vandeford.
"This morning I am going to talk to the electrician and the costumer and the scene painter." Mr. Vandeford answered by telling her the truth, because, with her very beautiful and candid eyes beaming into his, showing both interest and consideration, he had not the power to make up any kind of lie to put her off the trail of "The Purple Slipper."
"I am so glad that I got up early and am ready to go with you! I can tell them about what my great-grandmother really wore when it all happened, and it will be such a help to them!" Miss Adair exclaimed with great business acumen shining in her eyes. Mr. Vandeford gave up the fight, piloted her into his car, and gave the command, "Office!" to the very decorous, but very much interested Valentine.
As they were skimming back up the avenue and about to turn into Forty-second Street, an inspiration came to Mr. Vandeford.
"Didn't you keep some of those costumes of the period of the play hid away in an old brass-nailed leather trunk in your garret?" he asked Miss Adair, with desperate eagerness shining in his eyes.
"Yes," Miss Adair answered readily. Then she hesitated, and the genuine blush rivaled the one in the northeast corner of the bouquet at the waist of the very chic, blue-silk suit. "That is, I did have some—"
"Have they been destroyed?" questioned Mr. Vandeford, with the greatest anxiety.
"No, not exactly," answered Miss Adair, with a distressed tremor at the corner of her curved mouth that rivaled a rose of a deeper hue in the southwest corner of the bouquet.
"I see," answered Mr. Vandeford, with great relief. "You are not just sure where they are. That's great! You can have a talk with Mr. Corbett, who is to design the costumes, and then hop right back home in a day or two, as soon as you are rested and we've had a little bat on Broadway, and find them for him to use in his designs. The management will pay all the expenses and you can—can—"