Officer 666 Part 53

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE CIRc.u.mVENTION OF AUNTIE.

Sadie sat up with a start and rubbed her eyes.

"All right, Nanette," she said sleepily. "I'm awake."

The trim, rosy-cheeked maid smiled and swiftly left the room.

She had deposited one armful of fluffy things on a chair beside Sadie's bed and another armful of fluffy things on a chair beside Helen's bed. She had also performed other mysterious little offices noiselessly before going to the side of Sadie's bed.

"And sleeping like an innocent babe," said the comely Nanette to herself with a depth of affection in her tone. Then she bent down and called in Sadie's ear:

"Ten o'clock, Miss Sadie."

She had to repeat the whispered call several times before Sadie's eyelids fluttered and she stirred into life. The maid had vanished by the time the younger of the two sleeping beauties had removed the cobwebs from her eyes.

The twin rosewood beds lay side by side enveloped by the transparent silken hangings of a single canopy. The room was exquisitely done in pink and everywhere were evidences that the two lucky mortals who slumbered therein were coddled and pampered to the limit of modern luxury.

Sadie's robe de nuit, as the fashion magazines put it, was a creation of laces and ribbons and mighty becoming. She had admitted this to herself as she surveyed her reflection in the tall oval mirror only five hours before. She admitted it again as she hopped out of bed and confronted herself in the same mirror. Then she turned and ran quickly to the side of Helen's bed.

She bent down and kissed her cousin.

"Get up, Helen," Sadie urged, as the blue eyes reluctantly opened.

"Get up and dress, dear--we haven't much time."

"Much time for what?" asked Helen, sitting up and going through the ceremony of rubbing her eyes.

"Much time before Auntie wakes."

A roseate blush spread up from the ribbons at Sadie's throat to the roots of her fair hair.

Helen's eyes were wide open now and she looked at her cousin in frowning puzzlement.

"And Mr. Hogg is expected," said Sadie, with swift inspiration.

"Whatever are you driving at?" asked Helen.

"Are you anxious to greet Mr. Hogg?" pouted Sadie.

"No," was the vehement response.

"Then we must be out when he comes--and I have an important engagement at eleven."

Helen shot two little pink feet out of the covers and planked them down on the velvety rug.

"Whom have you an engagement with, Sadie Burton?" she asked, with breathless eagerness.

"I have an engagement to elope!"

This time Sadie turned her head to hide her blushes.

Helen seemed actually paralyzed. There was an intense pause before Sadie wheeled round, flung her head defiantly and said with more fire than she had ever in her life displayed:

"With Mr. Whitney Barnes--and you are going to a.s.sist me--you and Mr.

Gladwin."

"You--cannot--be--serious, Sadie?" said the older cousin, slowly.

"I am, though!" was the pa.s.sionate rejoinder. "Nanette and I packed my steamer trunk after you and Auntie went to bed. Hurry now, Helen, dear, for we must be at the Little Church Around the Corner at eleven o'clock. I am going to wear my gray travelling dress and you your brown."

"Why, you dreadful little minx, you!" cried Helen. "If you are poking fun at me I will never forgive you."

"I am not poking fun," retorted Sadie with the same ardor and almost in tears. "It is all planned and arranged. Whitney promised to have everything ready at the church, including Travers Gladwin. He said he couldn't wait another minute after eleven o'clock--that the suspense would kill him--and he was so terribly in earnest about it that I believe him."

"You goose!" exclaimed Helen, but now she was smiling and there was a happy light in her eyes.

"Do you mean to tell me, Sadie Burton," she added, "that you fell in love with that young man in a few hours--_you_, the man-hater!"

"Y-y-yes," admitted Sadie, her cheeks again on fire.

"And a man you don't know anything about--a perfect stranger!"

This brought the fire into the timid miss's eyes and she returned warmly:

"I know everything about him, Helen Burton--his whole family history, and he is only obeying orders in rushing the ceremony."

"Obeying orders?"

"Yes, his father commanded him to marry me at once--and if he doesn't obey he will be disinherited and have to become a plumber or something to make a living. His father is Joshua Barnes, the mustard king--you must have heard of him. When I told Auntie who he was she almost collapsed and said something about Joshua Barnes buying and selling twenty hogs--I suppose she meant Jabez Hogg."

"Why, I never heard of such a thing, Sadie. Mr. Barnes could not have been serious. His father never saw you in his life."

"Oh, but he telephoned his father all about it before he proposed to me. He was sure I would say yes. He is a wonderful mind-reader and believes in mysteries and Fate. He said the minute he saw me he knew I was his Fate."

Once more the modest Sadie was in a state bordering on conflagration.

Helen's eye sobered as she looked at and beyond Sadie.

"That was the very thing Travers Gladwin--I mean the real one--said to me," she mused.

"He did!"

"Yes, and the way things have turned out it would seem"----

Helen stopped and covered her face with her hands. Sadie ran to her and put her arms about her.