Closing her eyes, she tried to see that room again; to call back pictures of ladies who had entered the room while she had been looking down upon it.
“No,” she thought at last, “there isn’t one that fits; one was tall and ugly, one short, stout and middle aged, and two were quite gray. Not one fits the description of this Christmas Spirit person; unless, unless—” her heart skipped a beat. She had thought of the Mystery Lady.
“But of course it couldn’t be,” she reasoned at last. “It doesn’t say she was to be there at that very moment. I was not standing on the stair more than ten minutes. There are six such periods in an hour and nine and a half working hours in a store day. Fine chance! One chance in fifty. And yet, stranger things have happened. What if it were she! What——”
Her dreamings were broken short off by the sudden crumpling of paper at her side. Cordie had been glancing over the evening paper. Now the paper had entirely disappeared, and Cordie’s face was crimson to the roots of her hair.
“Why Cordie, what’s happened?” exclaimed Lucile.
“Noth—nothing’s happened,” said Cordie, looking suddenly out of the window.
That was all Lucile could get out of her. One thing seemed strange, however. At the stand by the foot of the elevated station Cordie bought two copies of the same paper she had been reading on the train. These she folded up into a solid bundle and packed tightly under her arm.
“I wonder why she did that?” Lucile thought to herself.
As often happens in bachelor ladies’ apartments, this night there was nothing to be found in their larder save sugar, milk and cocoa.
“You get the cocoa to a boil,” said Lucile, “and I’ll run over to the delicatessen for something hot. I’m really hungry to-night.” She was down the stairs and away.