“Dorothy, you are a brick; that’s what you are. You will do anything to help a friend in trouble.”
Dorothy smiled.
“I have so few friends that whatever I can do for them will not greatly tax any capabilities I may possess.”
“Nevertheless, Dorothy, I thoroughly appreciate what you have done. You did not wish any one to know you were corresponding with him, and yet you never hesitated a moment when you saw I was anxious.”
“Indeed, Kate, there was nothing to conceal. Ours is a very ordinary exchange of letters. I have only had two: one at Bar Harbor a few days after he left, and another longer one since we came to the hotel, written from England.”
“Did the last one go to Bar Harbor, too? How came you to receive it when we did not get ours?”
“It did not go to Bar Harbor. I gave him the address of my lawyers in New York, and they forwarded it to me here. Lieutenant Drummond was ordered home by some one who had authority to do so, and received the message while he was sitting with me on the night of the ball. He had got into trouble with Russia. There had been an investigation, and he was acquitted. I saw that he was rather worried over the order home and I expressed my sympathy as well as I could, hoping everything would turn out for the best. He asked if he might write and let me know the outcome, and, being interested, I quite willingly gave him permission, and my address. The letter I received was all about a committee meeting at the Admiralty in which he took part. He wrote to me from the club in Pall Mall to which I have addressed this cablegram.”
There was a sly dimple in Katherine’s cheeks as she listened to this straightforward explanation, and the faintest possible suspicion of a smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. She murmured, rather than sang:
“‘A pair of lovesick maidens we.’”
“One, if you please,” interrupted Dorothy.