Margaret Cameron and Jessie Leach Rector

“ I have a growing sympathy for criminals. Perhaps they don't mean to, either, when they start."
"I know," again said Lois. "But here we are, Sallie. We're in it! And what's the alternative now? If we go away, Jim loses this wonderful chance, and he may never get another like it! If we send Fifi away, we break our promise to Aunt Mary. In either case somebody's hurt. But if we merely practise a little deceit that hurts nobody—"
"It does!" hotly protested the girl. "It hurts me! I hate myself when I lie! ”

“ Sallie told her. "If Jim won't come, he won't. You're not expert in the gentle art of nagging."
"No, but if I could only see him I might persuade— Sallie!" Lois broke off with a gasp and a glint of excitement in her eyes. "That's what we'll do. We'll persuade the Robertson man!"
"What are you talking about?"
"He's at the Equival. We'll go up there—you and I—and between us surely we can coax him to stay over one ship. And that will give Jim his chance!"
"Lois, you're crazy! If a responsible engineer finds it difficult to interest this man, what on earth can we do? ”

“ Sallie seemed to answer the constable, but she looked at Robertson, resolved at last to tell him the whole truth, regardless that he, of all others, might most misunderstand her. "We had to come here because we heard that a man vitally important to my brother-in-law's interests expected to be here." Robertson's face hardened again, and the gaze he bent upon her grew piercing, but she struggled on, despite her qualms. "He was to leave the country sooner than we had expected, and as it was impossible for Jim to get here in time, my sister felt that she must come herself. ”

“ Within an hour Miss Evans had whispered to several friends her surprise that apparently it had occurred to no one else to connect the hotel mystery with the Van Alstyne child. She admitted that the women looked like ladies, but when one remembered all the queer details and the curious little discrepancies, it did seem suspicious, didn't it? Leaving the dining-room, she overtook Mrs. Vernon and Mrs. Ralston, who had postponed her interview with the sisters until after luncheon. ”

“ Where's the kid?"
"They think we have the Van Alstyne child," Sallie hurriedly explained.
"But—but we haven't! How perfectly ridiculous! Of course we haven't!" Lois looked appealingly at Robertson, who responded gravely but gently:
"It's felt that there's some mystery about your child. Perhaps, if you'll let this officer see him—"
For a moment Lois regarded him with stricken eyes. Then she looked at Sallie, and both flushed heavily.
"I—can't," the elder sister confessed. "There is no child."
"There certainly was a child when you came here," the clerk crisply reminded her. ”

“ Mrs. Delafield herself told me! It's a boy. They call him James—for his father!"
"Why—how extraordinary!" A startled glance ran around the group before some one laughed, explaining:
"James and Jane aren't unlike in sound. One of you has misunderstood. Here comes Miss Granger now—with Mr. Robertson. He seems rather épris, doesn't he? It's the first time he's noticed a woman—except to avoid her—since I've known him."
As the couple approached the gossiping group, Miss Evans turned to Sallie, saying, pleasantly: "What a relief it must be to you and your sister that your nurse has come! ”

“ Even if it's noticed that we sometimes have a baby, nobody's going to realize that we haven't also a nurse."
But Lois did not take into consideration the idle interest of a summer hotel. The sisters attracted attention from the moment of their arrival, and as Sallie stepped from the motor-'bus a big, loosely built man in golfing dress remarked to his companion:
"Now, there, if you like, is a girl!"
"Right you are!" was the reply. "Best type of American girl. If you'd come home oftener, Robertson, and stay longer, you'd see more of 'em." ”

“ Robertson's opportunity?" asked the elder Miss Granger, accustomed from birth to grant rather than to seek acquaintance. "Why is he so important, anyway?"
"Because he owns one of the largest bodies of intractable ores in this country," Lois told her, "but he's been fooled by so many projects that it's terribly hard to interest him in a new one—especially for a young engineer like Jim. Besides, the man's so scandalously rich that a few million tons, more or less, of refractory ores don't seem worth bothering with, I suppose; but to Jim—why, a chance like this means everything!" ”

“ Sallie's tone was reluctant, and presently Lois asked:
"Who wrote that thing about the 'tangled web we weave when once we practise to deceive'?"
"The trouble with us seems to be that we've never practised, the other returned, with a short laugh. "Ours is unskilled labor."
A day or two after this it began to be whispered about among the women that the Delafield baby must be afflicted in some hideous way, for he was always carried to and from the hotel completely hidden in wraps, and every attempt to see him had been frustrated. ”

“ Ford, the manager here, is keen for the process and has volunteered to introduce me to Sage Robertson, who happens, by great luck, to be in this country now. They're old friends. To interest that particular man seems too good to be true—only nothing is—' "Think what that means!" Lois was glowing. "It's success, if it goes through! And it must! I do wish Jim would come East now, tests or no tests!"
"I don't," said her sister. "I think he's doing the right thing to be perfectly sure before he approaches this Robertson man. Jim takes nothing for granted." ”

“ He'll only listen to us because he likes us."
"That man will listen to anybody who's intelligent," said Sallie. "I wonder whether he is married. Somehow, I think not."
After luncheon, when the younger sister had gone off with Robertson, and excitement over the disappearance of the Van Alstyne child had waned a little, Mrs. Ralston turned her attention to Mrs. Delafield, and the discovery that the new-comers claimed kinship with her friend Mrs. Adams, of Brookline, only strengthened her determination to take them under her patronage.
"Do, my dear, bring that baby out on the veranda!" ”

“ Or an implication that, like wine, we can't be really acceptable until several summers have aged us?" she inquired.
"Ah, but sometimes making a new acquaintance is like finding an old friend, isn't it?" ”

“ He's just completing the final tests of his new process for reducing complex ores."
"Oh!" Despite his large holding, Robertson was not interested, just then, either in refractory ores or in Jim Delafield's activities, but he perceived that if he should need an excuse for delaying his trip, here it was to his hand, so he caught at the suggestion. "If he has a good process, I'd like to meet him. I own rather a lot of intractable ores, but I've never found a satisfactory method of handling them."
"Too bad you're sailing so soon, then," she said, lightly, but with beating heart. ”

“ Jim's so conservative he never will back himself unless he has a sure thing."
"Good point," said Robertson. "Perhaps I can arrange to stay over, if he's coming soon."
Sallie went radiantly from this interview, to find the ever-irate and protesting Emmy telling Lois of an encounter with some of the other nurses, from whom, perforce, she held rigorously aloof, and who retaliated, when occasion offered, by insulting suggestions that she was guarding a "freak." ”