“And yet,” she thought more calmly, “it has been more than three weeks since I wrote that letter to his hotel in New York. There has been time for it to reach England and for the reply to come. I have heard nothing. Perhaps he is dead.
“No reply,” she thought again. “There may have been one, and yet I may not have known it.”
This was true. Since she did not wish to carry the heavy bags to her room, she had left them at Angelo’s studio, and in writing the letter had given only that address.
“I have not been to the studio for three days. A letter may await me. I shall go to-day. If he reclaims the bags, he will repay me. Perhaps there will be a tiny reward. Then all will be well again. Ah, yes, why despair?”
Thus encouraged, she hopped out of bed, did ten minutes of shadow-dancing and then, having hopped into her clothes, set about the business of making toast and coffee over an electric plate.
“Life,” she murmured as she sipped her coffee, “is after all very, very sweet.”
CHAPTER XXVI
THE SAINTED BEGGAR
An afterthought had a tendency to dim the little French girl’s hopes. Angelo, she remembered, had called her on the phone the day before.
He had, he assured her, nothing of importance to say. “And that,” she told herself now, “means no letter. And yet, he may have forgotten. Ah, well, we’ll hope. And I shall not go there until evening. That will give the mailman one more day to do his bit.”
She called to mind the things Angelo had told her. He and his companions were very close to the bottom. His precious treasures, rugs and all, must soon go. They were living from hand to mouth. Dan Baker had been earning a little, three or four dollars a day. “Doing impersonation.” That is what the old trouper had called it, whatever that might mean. Swen had hopes of earning something soon. How? He did not know. As for himself, he had found nothing. He had even offered to sell books on drama at a book store; but they would not have him.