The Automobile Girls at Washington Part 20

Grace and Mollie both shook their heads. No; Harriet had mentioned no such key to them.

Barbara was waiting in the next room with the door open. She knew her turn would come next.

"Do you know anything of the key, Miss Barbara?" Harriet's maid inquired.

Of course Bab blushed. She always did at the wrong time.

"Yes, I have the key, Mary," she replied. "Wait a minute, I will get it for you."

"Do the young ladies know anything of my key?" Mr. William Hamlin's impatient voice was heard just outside Barbara's door.

Innocently the maid opened it. "Wait a minute, Mr. Hamlin, please. Miss Thurston says she has the key. She is getting it for you now."

And Barbara had to come to the door herself to present the key to this dreadful old "Bluebeard."

"I presume my daughter left my key in your charge," Mr. Hamlin asked coldly.

"No," she declared almost under her breath, hoping her stern host would either not hear her, or at least not heed her. "Harriet did not leave it with me."

"Then kindly tell me how my key came into your possession?" Mr. Hamlin inquired, in chilling, even tones. Bab shivered.

"I found it," Bab answered lamely, having it in mind to tell the whole strange story of last night's experience. But she was too frightened by Mr. Hamlin's manner and by the fear that she would be regarded as a telltale by Harriet. If Mr. Hamlin's own daughter had not considered her guest's actions unusual, it was not exactly Bab's place to report them.

So she remained silent, and her host also turned away in silence.

Harriet did not come home until just before dinner time. She told the "Automobile Girls" she had spent a delightful day, but her behavior was unusual. She looked frightened, though at the same time happier than she had seemed since the hour she had received the first threatening letter from her dressmaker.

Peter Dillon had walked home with Harriet. Barbara, who happened to be standing at the front window, saw them stop to talk for a moment at the door before Peter said good-bye. Peter was making himself very charming to Harriet. He was talking to her in his half laughing, half earnest fashion in the very manner that had seemed so attractive to Bab, too, at first. But it was a manner she had learned later on to distrust and even to fear.

When Harriet parted from Peter Dillon she nodded her head emphatically and apparently made him a promise, and Barbara saw Peter look back at her with a peculiar smile as she ascended the steps.

CHAPTER XIX

HARRIET IN DANGER

Harriet Hamlin was restless and nervous all the next day. Even Mr.

Hamlin, noticing his daughter's nervous manner at luncheon, suggested that she take her friends out to pay some calls. So Bab put forth her plea that she wished to make another visit to the home of the Chinese minister. As the girls had not yet paid their luncheon call at the emba.s.sy Harriet agreed to take them to see Wee Tu. Before she left the house Harriet called up her dressmaker and had a long confidential talk with her over the telephone. She seemed in better spirits afterwards.

The Chinese minister's wife, Lady Tu, was receiving. As there were no men in the drawing-room, her daughter, Wee Tu, sat among the young girls as quiet and demure as a picture on a fan.

Bab managed to persuade the little girl into a corner to have a quiet chat with her. But Miss Wee Tu was difficult to draw out. Across the room, Harriet Hamlin chanced to mention the name of Peter Dillon. At once the little Chinese girl's expression changed. The change was very slight. Hardly a shade of emotion crossed her unexpressive, Oriental face, but curious Barbara was watching for that very change. She remembered the young girl had been affected by Peter's appearance during their former visit.

"Do you like Mr. Dillon?" inquired Bab. She had no excuse for her question except her own wilful curiosity.

But Wee Tu was not to be caught napping.

"Lige?" she answered, with a soft rising inflection that made the "k" in "like" sound as "g." "I do not know what Americans mean by the word--'Lige.' You 'lige' so many people. A Chinese girl 'liges' only a few--her parents, her relatives; sometimes she 'liges' her husband, but not always."

"Don't like your husband!" exclaimed Bab in surprise. "Why, what do you mean?"

The little Chinese maiden was confused both by the American word and the American idea.

"The Chinese girl has respect for her husband; she does what he tells her to do, but she does not all the time 'lige' him, because her father has chosen him for her husband. I shall marry a prince, when I go back to China, but he is 'verra' old."

"Oh, I see!" Bab rejoined. "You thought I meant 'love' when I said 'like.' It is quite different to love a person." Bab smiled wisely. "To love is to like a great deal."

"Then I love this Mr. Peter Dillon," said the Chinese girl sweetly.

Bab gasped in shocked surprise.

"It is most improper that I say so, is it not?" smiled Miss Wee Tu. "But so many things that American girls do seem improper to Chinese ladies.

And I do like this Mr. Peter very much. He comes always to our house. He is 'verra' intimate with my father. He talks to him a long, long time and they have Chinese secrets together. Then he talks with me so that I can understand him. Many people will not trouble with a Chinese girl, who is only fifteen, even if her father is a minister."

Barbara was overwhelmed with Wee Tu's confidence, but she knew she deserved it as a punishment for her curiosity. The strangest thing was that the young Chinese girl spoke in a low, even voice, without the least change of expression in her long, almond eyes. Any one watching her would have thought she was talking of the weather.

"I go back to China when my father's time in the United States is over and then I get married. It makes no difference. But while I am in your country I play I am free, like an American girl, and I do what I like inside my own head."

"It's very wrong," Barbara argued hastily. "It is much better to trust to your parents."

"Yes?" answered Wee Tu quietly. Bab was vexed that Peter Dillon's careless Irish manners had also charmed this little Oriental maiden. But Bab was wise enough to understand that Wee Tu's interest was only that of a child who was grateful to the young man for his kindness.

Barbara rose to join her friends, who were at this moment saying good-bye to their hostess.

"It is the Chinese custom," Lady Tu remarked graciously, "to make little presents to our guests. Will not Mr. Hamlin's daughter and her four friends receive these poor offerings?"

A servant handed the girls five beautiful, carved tortoise sh.e.l.l boxes, containing exquisite sets of combs for their hair, the half dozen or more that Chinese women wear.

"I felt ashamed of my wind-blown hair when Lady Tu presented us with these combs," Grace exclaimed, just before the little party reached home.

They had paid a dozen more calls since their visit to the Chinese Emba.s.sy. "I suppose Chinese women are shocked at the way American girls wear their hair."

"Yes, but we can't take three hours to fix ours," laughed Mollie, running up the steps of the Hamlin house. In the front hall Mollie spied an immense box of roses. They were for Harriet. Harriet picked up the box languidly and started upstairs. She had talked very little during the afternoon, and had seemed unlike herself.

"Aren't you going to open your flowers, Harriet?" Mollie pleaded. "I am crazy to see them."

"I'll open them if it pleases you, Mollie," Harriet returned gently. The great box was crowded with long-stemmed American beauties and violets.

"Have some posies, girls?" Harriet said generously, holding out her arms filled with flowers. For a long time afterwards the "Automobile Girls"

remembered how beautiful Harriet looked as she stood there, her face very pale, her black hair and hat outlined against the dark oak woodwork with the great bunch of American beauties in her arms.

"Of course we don't want your posies, Lady Harriet," Mollie answered affectionately. "Here is the note to tell you who sent them to you." But Harriet went on to her room without showing enough interest in her gift to open the letter.

After dinner Harriet complained of a headache, and went immediately to her room. The "Automobile Girls" were going out to a theater party, which was being given in their honor by their old friends, Mrs. Post and Hugh.

Harriet sent word she would have to be excused. When Ruth put her head into Harriet's room to say good-bye, just before she started for the theater, she thought she heard her cousin crying.

"Harriet, dear, do let me stay with you," Ruth pleaded. "I am afraid you are feeling worse than you will let us know."