Madame Claire was glad she was not included in the ban of silence. She was much interested in the affair. She was also—though she took care not to let Judy see it—a little excited. It was not, she felt, one of those incidents that seem to have no consequences, nor leave any mark. Something new, she believed, had been set in motion, and that something new meant to poke a disturbing finger into Judy’s life. But she forbore to ask too many questions.
She heard about it the next day, and Judy told her that Noel had already talked to Major Stroud over the telephone, and had learned that Major Crosby was still unconscious.
“He told Noel we were not to worry—the doctor’s orders I believe—and then he went on to say that he’d once been unconscious for twenty-eight hours himself, and had come to at the end of it as lively as a cricket. But then he’s a hopeless optimist, and you never can believe optimists.”
“You and Noel seem to have taken him to your hearts from the first,” commented Madame Claire. “Chip, I mean. Well, I’d back your judgments against anybody’s.”
“I think you would have felt like that too. But he isn’t going to be easy to know,” said her granddaughter.
“Isn’t he? Why?”
“He’s very shy,” answered Judy. “He had the shyest rooms I ever saw. Not a photograph to be seen, nor an ornament, nor even a novel. You know, you can guess at such a lot if there are things like that about to help you. No, there wasn’t a single clue. But the greatest clue, in a way, was the lack of clues. As though, because of his shyness, he had tried to cover up his tracks. I don’t think he wants to be known.”
“If he had to be knocked down by a motor,” said Madame Claire, “I consider it a fortunate thing that you were in it. After all, it might have been any Tom or Dick—or Miss Tom or Dick.”
“I only wish he might take that view of it,” answered Judy. “What news of Louise?”
Madame Claire hoped to hear more about Chip, but she was always quick to feel when a change of subject was wanted.