“I don’t know, Peggy,” Paula said earnestly. “I’ve been worried to death about it. I haven’t heard from Nancy for almost a month. You see, that’s why I ran out of money. My parents naturally didn’t want me to carry too much cash with me, so they arranged to send regular monthly checks to me at the cities I was supposed to visit. As soon as the checks came to the hotel, Nancy would send them to me in New York, I would sign them and mail them back, and Nancy would cash them in Europe. That way, the bank markings on the backs of the checks wouldn’t be from New York, but from Paris, or Milan or Rome or wherever Nancy was. Then Nancy would send me a money order. The whole process only took about a week by air mail, and it worked fine for a while.”
“It sounds complicated, but it makes sense,” Peggy said. “That is, as much sense as it could make, once you had decided to do a foolish thing. But what went wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Paula repeated miserably. “All of a sudden the money stopped coming, and I didn’t get any letters from Nancy. At that point, I didn’t know what to do. I’m convinced that Nancy either must have had an accident, or else she’s ill, because I know that I can trust her. She must be unable to send mail. I’m scared! I would have quit the show and gone to Europe to find out, but by then I didn’t have any money left. My father’s London office probably could locate her right away, but I didn’t want to call my parents and tell them, because then no good at all would have come of the whole affair. I just kept hoping each day that I’d hear from Nancy. And meanwhile, opening night was coming closer, and I thought that if I could just hold out until then—and until I saw the notices in the papers—I could tell my parents, and maybe they’d understand.”
“Well, maybe so,” Peggy said, “but, to tell you the truth, Paula, I doubt it. They’ll surely understand your desire to prove yourself, but I can’t imagine that they’ll appreciate the way you chose to do it.”
Paula nodded, looking unhappier every minute.
“What do you think I ought to do, Peggy?”
“I think you ought to call them right now and tell them you’re all right. Then you can explain what you’ve done, and see what they say.”
“No! No, Peggy! I know you’re right, but I also know what they’d do! They would come right to New York, and they’re unable to travel anywhere without being recognized and followed by reporters and photographers. And once the newspapers get hold of a story like this, it’ll be all over the place, and when opening night is over, I’ll still not know whether I was good or not—or if I made a splash because of my name and my publicity.”
“But you can’t keep them worrying any longer!” Peggy exclaimed.
“It’s not much longer, Peggy,” Paula pleaded. “We open in three days—just three more days! Then I’ll tell them!”