“He is in the Hepburn line, one degree removed from Thea, and he is hunting for a missing link, which, if found, will knock Thea into a cocked hat.”
Miss Morton knew about the missing link herself; indeed, she had once tried to trace it, but had given it up with the conviction that it was extinct, and if she thought so, why, then, it was so, and Aleck Grady would never find it. But he might be dangerous elsewhere, and she repeated her question as to whether Thea liked him or not.
“I dare say,—as her cousin,” Grant replied, adding, with a view to tease his aunt, “and she may get up a warmer feeling, for there is no guessing what will happen when a young man is teaching a girl to ride a bicycle, as he is teaching Thea.”
“Ride a bicycle! Thea on a bicycle! Thea astride of a wheel!” Miss Morton exclaimed, horrified and aghast at the idea.
Was the world all topsy-turvy, or had she lived so long out of it that she had lost her balance and fallen off? She did not know, and she looked very white and worried, while Grant laughed at her distress and told her how picturesque Thea looked in her blue gown and red shoes and jockey cap, adding:
“And she rides well, too, which is more than can be said of all the girls. But it is of no use to kick at the bicycles; they have come to stay, and I mean to get Doris one as soon as I can. She must not be left out in the cold when Thea and I go racing down the turnpike. She will be splendid on a wheel.”
“God forbid!” came with a gasp from the highly scandalized lady, while Doris’s eyes shone with a wonderful brilliancy as they looked their thanks at Grant.
With a view to change the conversation, Beriah began to question Grant of his trip to Egypt, without a suspicion of the deep waters into which she was sailing. After describing some of the excursions on the donkeys, Grant suddenly exclaimed:
“By the way, Aunt Brier, I met an old acquaintance of yours in Cairo, Tom Atkins, who said he used to visit Morton Park. Do you remember him?”
Beriah was white to the roots of her hair, and her hand shook so that her coffee was spilled upon the damask cloth as she answered, faintly: