Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/55

 as before—it was quite an advantage to have a receptacle as capacious as a knitting bag which she could keep with her no matter where she went. Descending to the ground floor, she found about the same number and about the same sort of people passing back and forth or lounging in the lobby. Hubert Lennon was there and he placed himself beside her as she surrendered her room key.

"You're perfectly corking, Cynthia!" he admired her, evidently having decided during his wait that he could say her name.

Color—the delicate rose blush in her clear skin which Sam Hilton so greatly liked—deepened on her cheek.

"All ready now, Hubert," she said; her use of his name greatly pleased him and he grasped her arm, unnecessarily, to guide her out.

"Just a minute," she hesitated as she approached the telegraph desk. "I've a wire to send to father."

The plan had popped out with the impulse which had formed it; she had had no idea the moment before of telegraphing to Charles Gail. But now the ecstasy of the daring game—the game beginning here in small perils, perhaps, but also perhaps in great; the game which was swiftly to lead, if she could make it lead, across the sea and through France into Switzerland and then into the land of the enemy upon the Rhine—had caught her; and she knew instinctively how to reply to that as yet uncomprehended telegram from her father.

She reached for the dispatch blanks before she remembered that, though her handwriting would not be delivered in Decatur, still here she would be leaving a record in writing which was not like Cynthia Gail's. So she merely