The clerk really couldn't say. He had been on duty for only half an hour. There was no person of the name of Blake in the hotel. Sometimes guests who failed to find just the accommodation they wanted went over to the Blinheim, just across the avenue. So the bridegroom set out upon his quest and the clerk, less world-weary than his predecessor, turned back to the telephone-girl.
Presently there approached the desk a brisk, business-like person who asked a few business-like questions and then registered in a bold and flowing hand, "Mr. and Mrs. Robert Blake, Boston."
"My husband," she announced, "will be here presently."
"He was here ten minutes ago," said the clerk, and added particulars.
"Oh, that's all right," replied the slightly-puzzled but quite unexcited lady; "he'll be back." And then, accompanied by bags and suitcases, she vanished aloft.
"Missed connections, somehow," commented the clerk to the stenographer, and gave himself to the contemplation of "Past Performances" in the Evening Telegram, and to ordinary routine of a hotel office for an hour or so, when, to prove the wisdom of the lady's calm, the excited Mr. John Blake returned.
"There must be some mistake," he began darkly, "I've been to every hotel—"
"Lady came ten minutes after you left," said the genial clerk. "Front, show the gentleman to 450." And, presently, John was explaining his dilemma to Gladys, the pretty wife of his cousin Bob. "She is somewhere in this hotel," he fumed, "and I'll find her if I have to search it room by room."
The office was hardly quiet after the appearance and disappearance of Mr. John Blake, when the clerk and the telephone-girl were again interrupted by an excited gentleman. His white whiskers framed an anxious, kindly face, his white waistcoat bound a true and tender heart.
"Has Mr. Blake arrived?" he demanded with some haste.