Perhaps it is not strange that Lucile did not feel warranted in breaking in upon those secrets. So there she stood, irresolute, until the two of them had left the room and lost themselves in the throngs that crowded every aisle of this great mart of trade.
“Now,” Lucile sighed, “I shan’t ever feel quite the same about Cordie. I suppose, though, she has a right to her secrets. What could she possibly know about interior decorating and furnishing? Perhaps more than I would guess. But a country girl? What does she know about the Mystery Lady? Little, or much? Have they known each other long? I—I’ll ask her. No—n-o-o, I guess I won’t. I wasn’t supposed to see. It was too much like spying. No,” this decisively, “I’ll just have to let things work themselves out. And if they don’t work out to something like a revelation, then I’ll know they haven’t, that’s all. More than half the mysteries of the world are never unravelled at all.”
After this bit of reasoning, she hastened on down the remaining flights of stairs to her work.
“Where’s Cordie?” she asked of Laurie.
“Out on a shopping pass. Swell looking dame came in and called for her.” There was a knowing grin on Laurie’s face as he said this, but Lucile, who had turned to her work, did not notice it.
Cordie returned a few moments later, but not one word did she let fall regarding her shopping mission.
CHAPTER XII
SILVER GRAY TREASURE
“What do you think!” exclaimed Cordie. “It was such a strange thing to happen. I just have to tell some one, or I’ll burst. I daren’t tell Lucile. I am afraid she’d scold me.”
James, the mysterious seaman who carried bundles in the book department, looked at her and smiled.
“I’ve heard a lot of stories in my life, and them that wasn’t to be repeated, wasn’t. If you’ve got a yarn to file away in the pigeon holes of somebody’s brain, why file it with me.”