The Crimson Thread Part 5

When the water had been brought Lucile dampened her handkerchief and laid it icy cold on the other's forehead. Almost instantly the eyes opened and the girl, having dragged herself to a sitting position, stared about the museum.

"Wha--where am I?" she asked. "What has happened?"

"You're in the Art Museum. You fainted."

"Faint--fainted!" There was terror in her eyes.

"It was the cold. It's nothing, really nothing." Lucile put a steadying arm about her. "You'll be quite all right in a moment."

"Now where is that brother of hers?" grumbled the guard. "He's nowhere to be seen! He's gone!"

"Gone?" echoed Lucile.

"Brother?" said the girl in astonishment. "I have no brother. I am alone."

Such a wave of feeling swept over Lucile as made her sick and faint. She had been right, dreadfully right. She had saved this girl, this wonderful creature, from--she dared not think from what.

For a moment, rocked by her emotions, she sat there in silence. At last, with a supreme effort, she dragged herself to her feet.

"You look the worst of the two," said the guard, giving her a keen glance.

"I'm all right," she protested stoutly.

To the girl, whom she had a.s.sisted to her feet, she said, "You may come with me if you wish. Our store's only two blocks away. There's a rest room. You'll be all right there until you sort of get your bearings.

Perhaps I can help you."

"I'd--I'd be glad to," said the other, clinging to her impulsively.

So they left the museum together. Though she kept a sharp watch to right and left, Lucile caught no sign of the volunteer brother, but she shivered once or twice at the very thought of him.

It was a very much perplexed Lucile who curled up in her big chair that night for a few moments of quiet thought before retiring.

A new mystery had been added to her already well filled list of strange doings. "First," she said to herself, telling them off like beads on a rosary, "there comes the beautiful mystery woman and the cape she left behind; then Laurie Seymour and the vanishing author; then the crimson thread; and now this girl."

As she whispered this last she nodded toward the bed. There, lying wrapped in slumber, was the beautiful girl she had saved in the museum.

"She's even more beautiful in sleep than when awake," Lucile murmured.

"And such a strange creature! She hasn't told me a thing."

The last statement was entirely true. Any notion Lucile had of the girl, any guess at her hidden secrets, was based on observation and conjecture alone. Not one word regarding them had escaped the strange girl's lips.

Having accompanied Lucile to the store, she had lain upon a couch in the "quiet room" for three hours. Whenever Lucile had stolen a moment from work to look in upon her, the girl had appeared to be day-dreaming. Far from being worried about events of the past or the immediate future, she had appeared to be enjoying the recalling of an interesting adventure or antic.i.p.ating one.

At five she had risen from the cot and, having brushed her hair and arranged her clothing, had insisted upon helping her new-found friend to put her tables to rights. She had accepted Lucile's invitation to pa.s.s the night with her with the nonchalance of one who is offered this courtesy from a long-time friend.

Innocent of one sc.r.a.p of baggage, in the same manner she had accepted Lucile's offer of a dream robe.

In only one respect had she showed her independence. Having produced a dollar bill from somewhere on her person, she had insisted on paying for her own frugal lunch.

"Her clothes are the strangest of all," Lucile whispered to herself.

"When a girl comes upon a run of hard luck, she's likely to try to keep up an appearance even though she is shabby underneath. But look at her; a countrified suit of shiny blue serge, two years behind the times, and her undergarments are new and of the finest silk, up to the minute, too. How is one to explain that?"

She was not disturbed in the least about the girl's morals. She was as sweet and clean as a fresh blooming rose. Lucile would have sworn to that. With the lights turned out, and with the tingling winter air entering the open window, before retiring the girl had joined Lucile in the nightly "setting up" exercises and had appeared to enjoy them, too.

The strange girl's skin was like the finest satin. Her lines were perfect, her muscles superb. Through lack of knowledge of the exercises, she often blundered. But she could whirl more quickly, leap higher and swing about more gracefully than Lucile, who had never failed to throw her whole heart into her gym work.

"All that," Lucile murmured as she drew off her bathrobe preparatory to slipping beneath the covers, "all that, and she has not told me one word about herself. For a country girl she certainly has her full supply of reserve. To-morrow I am to try to get work for her as a wrapper. No doubt I can do it. And then?"

She thought about the future for a moment. She was alone this year. If you have read our book, "The Cruise of the O'Moo," you will remember that while living in the yacht in dry dock she had two companions--Florence and Marion. Florence had gone home. Marion was in Alaska. Now Lucile was alone. She would welcome a friend and, unless she had misread her character, this girl had the qualities of a steadfast and loyal pal.

"But her past?" Lucile whispered as she placed her slippers beneath the bed and drew back the covers. "Ah well, we shall see."

Once during the night she was wakened by the girl, who was evidently talking in her sleep.

"Don't let them. Don't! Don't!" she all but screamed as she threw out her arms for protection from some dream foe.

Putting her arms about her, Lucile held her tight until the dream had pa.s.sed and she fell back once more into peaceful slumber.

CHAPTER V "COME AND FIND ME"

"I'll pull some wires." The kindly face of Morrison, the man of fine bindings, gleamed as he said these words to Lucile next morning. "That's the way things are done these days. I haven't much notion how they were done in the past. But now, if I want anything, I pull some wires. For instance, your young friend whom you found in the Art Museum and whose name is Cordelia but whom you choose to call Cordie for short, wants work in this store. You ask me to pull wires and I pull 'em. I pull one and Miss So and So comes bowing out of her box of an office and I whisper what I want. 'I'll pull some wires,' says she, putting on her best smile.

'I'll put in a wedge, a very thin wedge.'

"She puts in her thin wedge. She pulls some wires and Mr. So and So up on the eleventh floor bobs bowing out of his box and inclines his ear to listen.

"'Ah! Yes, I see, I see,' he murmurs. 'I shall pull some wires.'

"He pulls some wires. A slip of paper appears. It is signed. It is given to your friend. She goes here, she bobs there, and presently here she is.

She has accepted 'the iron ring,' wrapping packages with very gay company all about her, having a good time and getting pay for it. But let me a.s.sure you it could not be done without wires pulled and thin wedges inserted. No, it could not be done. Nothing these days is done without wires and wedges. Wires and wedges, wedges and wires, my dear."

With this very lucid explanation of the way the world is run these days, the benevolent Morrison bowed himself away.

True to his prediction, two hours later the mysteriously silent Cordelia was installed in an obscure corner of the book section, working at the wrapping counter. She had accepted "the iron ring," said ring being an affair of solid iron into which, in a semi-circular b.u.mp on its edge, had been set a sharp bit of steel. The theory is that the steel edge cuts the stout cord with which the bundles are tied. Truth was that more often the sharp edge cut the girls' fingers than did the steel the string. So, in time having learned wisdom, Cordie discarded this doubtful bit of jewelry and used a knife. However, she worked on steadily and quite skillfully.

Before night it had become evident to all that the girl was proving a credit to her young protector, and that, take it all in all, wires had not been pulled nor wedges inserted in vain.

Two matters of interest came to Lucile's attention that day. A rumor was confirmed and a discovery made that in the end was to take someone somewhere.

First in regard to the discovery. Someone had left a morning paper on Lucile's table of books. She s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and was about to consign it to the waste box when a headline caught her eye:

"COME AND FIND ME"

Beneath this was a second headline: