“Naturally I couldn’t stay over there, batting around, and you folks in trouble—just couldn’t have swallowed a mouthful of food!”
Brainard held out his hand.
“Thank you! That’s the nicest thing I have heard for many a day.”
“Perhaps I could do something to help?”
“What?” Brainard asked jokingly. “Discover the real heir to the property?”
Miss Delacourt looked puzzled by this reference to his predicament. Evidently Miss Pyce’s information had been only of the most general character. The details of the threatened suit had not been considered of sufficient importance by the news agencies to cable to Europe.
“I can do something,” the girl said, drawing herself up haughtily. “I’m no stage-struck kid now. I’m going to act.”
“There is something you can do for me—for us,” Brainard hastened to say, remembering his chief excuse for meeting her at the dock. “I want you to come up to my house for breakfast right away, and hear what it is. Bring Miss Pyce, too, if she will come.”
“Oh, she’ll come! Cissie carries around a trunkful of floppy airs, but she’s a right good sort. I’m going to stay with her until I strike a job. She’s half promised to get me something in The Star of the Seven Seas—kitchen wench, I fancy. Cissie isn’t giving much away.”
“There’s something better than that ready for you. We want you to do the Gertrude in Ned’s play.”