"What message are you going to send?" she asked in a restrained voice.
"Missed night train. Will arrive at noon."
"No!" said Aunt Mary. "Mr. Merriam," she pursued quickly, "until George is brought back here you must stay. After all this in the papers this morning there will be scores of people to see him to-day. He is known to be a late riser and never sees any one before ten or they would have been here before this. In a very few minutes they will begin to come. We will put off most of them, of course. But there are likely to be some whom we can't put off. We can't tell where George is, and we can't say we don't know where he is, and there will be one or two to whom we can't say we won't tell where he is. We must have you in reserve. You shall go to bed in George's room, ill with--with--lumbago. Dr. Hobart will attend you. When absolutely necessary we can show a man into the room, and you can say a few words. I will tell you what to say in each case. You can have your head half way under the covers, and can make your voice weak and husky. You will be safe enough from detection. Then by this evening at the latest we shall bring George back, and you can go down to Riceville on the night train. You will only have missed one day, and you will have saved us from a most serious dilemma."
There was an appeal in the elderly woman's voice to which Merriam was not insensible, though the pull of habitual regularity at his school was strong in him.
It is to be feared that Alicia spoiled Aunt Mary's effect. Across the table from Merriam, she was partly hidden from him by the flowers. But she leaned forward, bringing her face almost beside the roses, and spoke in her most honeyed tones:
"Oh, do, Mr. Merriam! How can you resist it?" she added. "If I were a man and had the chance to be Mollie June's husband even for a day----"
She stopped with her archest smile.
Mollie June, with possibly the slightest augmentation of colour, brought forward a practical argument.
"Since you will miss the morning anyway, it won't much matter if you miss the whole day. You haven't but one class in the afternoon, have you?"
"Only senior algebra," said Merriam.