With a sudden shock her thoughts were cut short. Two persons had entered the glassed-in compartment—a woman of thirty and a girl in her late teens. And of all persons!
“The Mystery Lady and Cordie! It can’t be,” she breathed, “and yet it is!”
It was, too. None other. What was stranger still, they appeared to have business here. At sight of them one of the artists arose and lifting a drawing which had been standing face to the wall, held it out for their inspection.
Cordie clasped her hands in very evident ecstasy of delight, and, if Lucile read her lips aright, she exclaimed:
“How perfectly wonderful!”
The expression on the Mystery Lady’s face said plainer than words, “I hoped you’d like it.”
The sketch, Lucile could see plainly enough from where she stood, was a girl’s room. There was a bed with draperies, a study table of slender-legged mahogany, a dresser, one great comfortable chair surprisingly like Lucile’s own, some simpler chairs of exquisite design. These furnishings, and such others as only a girl would love, were done in the gay tints that appeal to the springtime of youth.
“Cordie?” Lucile stared incredulously. “A simple country girl, what can she know about such things? That room—why those furnishings would cost hundreds of dollars. It’s absurd, impossible; and yet there they are—she and the Mystery Lady.”
The Mystery Lady! At thought of her, Lucile was seized with an almost uncontrollable desire to rush down there and demand the meaning of that lady’s many strange doings. But something held her back. So Cordie was acquainted with the Mystery Lady! Here was something strange. Indeed, Lucile was beginning to wonder a great deal about Cordie.
“She has her secrets, little Cordie!” exclaimed Lucile. “Who would have thought it?”