And, gazing, she knew that she dared not ask Ilse where she had been.
The latter smiled; but her voice was very tender when she spoke.
“We’ll telephone your maid in the morning. You must go to bed, Palla.”
“Alone?”
Ilse turned carelessly and laid her cloak across a chair. There was a second chamber beyond her own. She went into it, turned down the bed and called Palla, who came slowly after her.
They kissed each other in silence. Then Ilse went back to her own room.
CHAPTER XVII
“Jim,” said his mother, “Miss Dumont called you on the telephone at an unusual hour last night. You had gone to your room, and on the chance that you were asleep I did not speak to you.”
That was all––sufficient explanation to discount any reproach from her son incident on his comparing notes with the girl in question. Also just enough in her action to convey to the girl a polite hint that the Shotwell family was not at home to people who telephoned at that unconventional hour.