"Order a luncheon, Miss Holliwell. Have it brought up here. Have Mouquin rush it through. That is all."
Miss Holliwell slowly closed the door, but her amazement at what she had seen within was turned to indignation at what she encountered without. As the door opened, Katy pressed up against the keyhole, fell back upon the floor. During the period when Sunny had been in the private office of Miss Holliwell's employer, she had had her hands full with the curious young person left behind. Katy had found relief from her pent-up curiosity in an endless stream of questions and gratuitous remarks which she poured out upon the exasperated secretary. Katy's tongue and spirit were entirely undaunted by the chilling monosyllabic replies of Miss Holliwell, and the latter was finally driven to the extremity of requesting her to wait in the outer office:
"I'm awfully busy," said the secretary, "and really when you chatter like that I cannot concentrate upon my work."
To which, with a wide friendly smile, rejoined Katy:
"Cheer up, Miss Frozen-Face. Mums the word from this time on."
"Mum" she actually kept, but her alert pose, her cocked-up ears and eyes, glued upon the door had such a quality of upset about them that Miss Holliwell found it almost as difficult to concentrate as when her tongue had rattled along. Now here she was engaged in the degrading employment of listening and seeing what was never intended for her ears and eyes. Miss Holliwell pushed her indignantly away.
"What do you mean by doing a thing like that?"
Between what she had seen inside her employer's private office, and the actions of this young gamin, Miss Holliwell was very much disturbed. She betook herself to the seat with a complete absence of her cultivated composure. When Katy said, however:
"Gee! I wisht I knew whether Sunny is safe in there with that gink," Miss Holliwell was forced to raise her hand to hide a smile that would come despite her best efforts. For once in her life she gave the wrong number, and was cross with the girl at the telephone desk because it was some time before Mouquin's was reached. The carefully ordered meal dictated by Miss Holliwell aroused in the listening Katy such mixed emotions, that, as the secretary hung up the receiver, the hungry youngster leaned over and said in a hoarse pleading whisper:
"Say, if you're orderin' for Sunny, make it a double."