“Fooled him,” she smiled to herself as she settled herself comfortably in a seat where she might watch the winter whitened city speed past her. “That’s the last I’ll ever see of him.”
In coming to this conclusion she overlooked one trifling detail. Since the night was cold, she had worn beneath her coat her elevator girl’s uniform. The auction room was warm. While there she had unbuttoned her coat, displaying plainly the uniform and the monogrammed buttons on it. The greatest of stores employ few enough elevator girls. To visit each bank of elevators and to get a look at each girl is but the work of an hour or two at most. The man would have no trouble in locating her if he cared to do so. Since she had not thought of this she rode home humming in a carefree manner and, after a meal of sandwiches, cocoa and pie, followed by an hour of reading, she went to bed to dream of mysterious treasures taken by the truck load from the depths of a heavy, dark brown travelling bag.
She awoke in the morning with a pleasing sense of mystery and anticipation lurking about in the shadowy corners of her brain.
Leaping from bed, she went through a series of wild calesthenics which set every ounce of blood in her veins racing away with new life.
An hour later, with a little suppressed feeling of excitement tugging at her heart and with fingers that trembled slightly, she passed her check over the counter at the depot. She had some slight feeling that it had all been a dream. But no, there it was, her mysterious bag, as big and handsome as ever. It was quite light, but she felt sure it was not empty. What could it contain? She was tempted to draw the key from her pocket then and there and have a peek. But no—to-morrow was Christmas. She could wait. So, seizing the bag, she hurried away to her work.
Once the bag was checked at the store and she back at her lever in the cage that went up and down, up and down all day, she found herself thinking of that other girl, the mysterious double of hers. Where was she to-day? Had she really gone to work, or had she vanished? What manner of plot had she been mixed up in? What train had gone at eleven-thirty? Whose train? Was that girl supposed to go? If so, why did she not wish to go? Where did she live? Who was she anyway?
While the elevator went up and down, up and down, these questions, and a score of others, kept revolving themselves in her mind. At last she found herself forming a firm resolve that should she happen upon her mysterious double again she most certainly would keep in touch with her until she found out more about her.
She saw her mysterious double shortly after she had gone to work, but under conditions which gave her no opportunity to either study or question her. The girl, dressed in her uniform and apparently ready to go to work, was standing before the bank of elevators on the thirteenth floor. She had been talking in low and excited tones to a tall, square shouldered man who, in spite of the fact that he was on a floor of this great store where only employees are allowed, had in his bearing and walk something that spoke strongly of boats and the sea.
“He’s been a captain or a mate or something,” Florence said to herself as she sent her cage speeding downward. “I wonder if that girl belongs to the sea.”