Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/225

 While Willys occupied himself with accelerating the arrival of a taxi, I went out on the street and stood on the curb, waiting reflectively enough for the appearance of Dorothy and her girl friend. Five minutes later they were driven up. With the notion that my function was to shut off a "scene" of any sort, I instantly remarked, in the quiet tone of a man who understands all about the situation, that Dorothy's father was explaining the thing to her mother, who was a little agitated, and that he desired them to wait downstairs till he came down. Both girls looked as if they had been crying, but they were calm now, and seemed indisposed to talk to me. When I had drawn them aside out of observation from the office, and saw no hysterical signs, I ventured to ask why they had been driving so fast. The other girl, whose name I did not catch, said that they had not been driving fast but had skidded. Before I could utter my natural question, Dorothy turned on her young friend, and said:—

"That is not so. You know it is not so." Then she did a queer thing. She asked me if I was leaving town that night, and when I said I was, she slipped from under her fur coat a small, light oblong parcel wrapped in a man's handker-