The Girl in the Mirror Part 13

"And this from you?"

"Don't be foolish. You know I like your ties," she interpolated kindly.

"But, really, isn't there some one?"

Laurie turned his profile to her, pulled a lock of hair over his brow, clasped his hands between his knees, and posed esthetically.

"Do you know," he sighed, "I begin to think that, just possibly, perhaps, there's a slight chance--that there is!"

"Be serious. Tell me about her."

"Well, she's a girl." He produced this confidence with ponderous solemnity. "She lives across the square from me," he added.

"Things brighten," commented Louise, drily. "Go on."

"She's mysterious. I don't know who she is, or anything about her. But I know that she's in trouble."

"Of course she is! I have never known a mysterious maiden that wasn't,"

commented the woman of the world. "What's her particular variety of trouble?"

Laurie reflected.

"That's hard to say," he brought out at last. "But it appears to be mixed up with an offensive person in a crumpled blue suit who answers to the name of Herbert Ransome Shaw. Have you ever heard of him?"

Louise wrinkled her fastidious nose.

"Never, I'm happy to say. But he doesn't sound attractive. However, tell me all about them. There seems a good chance that they may get you into trouble."

"That's what she said."

"It's the one gleam of intelligence I see in the situation," commented his candid friend. "Is she pretty?"

"As lovely in her way as you are. Think you could help her any?"

wheedled Laurie.

"I doubt it. I'm too selfish to be bothered with girls who are in trouble. I'll tell you who _can_ help her--Sonya Orleneff."

"Of course!" Laurie beamed at her. "Wonder why I didn't think of that."

"Probably because it was so obvious. Sonya is in town, as it happens, stopping at the Warwick. She has brought the Infant Samuel to New York to have his adenoids cut out. Samuel made a devastating visit here this morning. He's getting as fat as a little pig, and when he walks he puffs like a worn-out automobile going up a steep grade. He came up my stairs on 'low,' and I'm sure they heard him on the avenue. I almost offered him a gla.s.s of gasolene. But he is a lamb," she added reflectively.

Oddly enough, Samuel, late of New York's tenements, was another of her favorites.

Laurie was following his own thoughts. Sonya was in town! Then, however complicated his problem, it was already as good as solved.

"My dinner will be up soon," suggested Louise. "Are you dining with me?"

He glanced at his watch, reproachfully shook his head at it, and rose.

"Three hours of me are all you can have this time. But I'll probably drop around about dawn to-morrow."

"Nice boy!" Her hot hand caught his and held it. "Laurie, if--if--I should send for you suddenly sometime--you'd come and--stand by?"

All the gaiety was wiped from his face. His brilliant black eyes, oddly softened, looked into her haughty blue ones with sudden understanding.

"You bet I will! Any time, anything! You'll remember that? Send for me as if I were Bob. Perhaps you've forgotten it," he added, more lightly, "but I happen to be your younger brother."

For a moment her face twisted. The mask of her arrogance fell from it.

"Bob didn't know," she said. "If he had felt the least suspicion he wouldn't have gone so far, or for so long. I thought I had three or four months--"

Laurie bent and kissed her cheek.

"I'm coming in every day," he said, and abruptly left the room.

In the lower hall he stopped to take in the full real realization of what he had discovered. Louise, superb, arrogant, beautiful Louise, was really ill, desperately ill. A feeling of remorse mingled with his sense of shock. He had believed her a sort of nervous hypochondriac. He had so resented her excessive demands on Barbara that it was only since he had seen much of her in this last month that he had been able whole-heartedly to like and admire her.

As he stood silent, he became conscious of another presence--an august, impressive one, familiar in the past but veiled now, as it were, in a midst of human emotion. It was Jepson, the butler. He coughed humbly.

"Hexcuse me, sir," he faltered. "But Mrs. Hordway h'ain't quite so well lately, sir. 'Ave you hobserved that?"

Laurie nodded. "I noticed it to-day," he admitted.

"She's losin' strength very fast, sir. Hall of us 'as seen it. Cook says she don't eat nothink. And Susanne and the nurse says it's 'ard work to get 'er from the bed to 'er chair--"

Laurie checked these revelations.

"Has the doctor been here to-day?"

"Yessir, two of 'em 'ave been 'ere. Doctor Speyer comes hevery day. This morning 'e brought Doctor Hames again. Hit's very hupsetting, sir, with 'er brother away and hall."

The man was genuinely anxious. Laurie tried to rea.s.sure him.

"She may be better in a day or two," he said, more buoyantly than he felt. "But I'll come in every day. And here's my telephone number. If anything goes wrong, call me up immediately. Leave a message if I'm not there."

"Yessir. Thank you, sir." Jepson was pathetically grateful and relieved.

He had the English servant's characteristic need of sanction and authority.

When Laurie reached his rooms, he called Sonya on the telephone. Like Jepson, he was feeling rather overwhelmed by his responsibilities. It was a relief to hear Sonya's deep, colorful voice.

"Didn't know you were here till just now," he told her. "I'm coming to see you in the morning. I want to talk to you about a lot of things."

"Including Mrs. Ordway?" suggested Sonya.

"Yes. You saw her to-day. You noticed--"

"Of course. Samuel is to be operated on to-morrow. I'll send him back to Devon House with his mother in a few days, as soon as he can safely travel, and I shall stay right here."

"That's splendid of you!"