Part 29 (1/2)

”What is the matter, Mrs. Graham? Are you ill?”

Miss Sonnet's soft, voice sounded just behind me. As I turned I thought again, as I had many times before, how very attractive the little nurse was. She had on a dark blue negligee of rough cloth, made very simply, but which covered her night attire completely, while her feet, almost as small as a child's, were covered with fur-trimmed slippers of the same color as the negligee. Her abundant hair was braided in two plaits and hung down to her waist.

”You look like a sleepy little girl,” I said impulsively.

”And you like a particularly wakeful one,” she returned, mischievously. ”I am glad you are not ill. I feared you were when I heard you snap on the light.”

”No, you did not waken me. In fact, I have been awake nearly an hour.

I was just about to come out and rob the larder of a cracker and a sip of milk in the hope that I might go to sleep again when I heard you.”

”Splendid!” I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, while Miss Sonnot looked at me wonderingly.

”Can your patient hear us out here?”

”If you could hear her snore you would be sure she could not,” Miss Sonnot smiled. ”And I partly closed her door when I left. She is safe for hours.”

”Then we will have a party,” I declared triumphantly, ”a regular boarding school party.”

”Then on to the kitchen!” She raised one of her long braids of hair and waved it like a banner. We giggled like fifteen-year-old school girls as we tiptoed our way into the kitchen, turned on the light and searched refrigerator, pantry, bread and cake boxes for food.

”Now for our plunder,” I said, as we rapidly inventoried the eatables we had found. Bread, b.u.t.ter, a can of sardines, eggs, sliced bacon and a dish of stewed tomatoes.

”I wish we had some oysters or cheese; then we could stir up something in the chafing dish,” I said mournfully.

”Do you know, I believe I have a chafing dish recipe we can use in a sc.r.a.p book which I always carry with me,” responded Miss Sonnot. ”It is in my suit case at the foot of my couch. I'll be back in a minute.”

She noiselessly slipped into the living room and returned almost instantly with a substantially bound book in her hands. She sat down beside me at the table and opened the book.

”I couldn't live without this book,” she said extravagantly. ”In it I have all sorts of treasured clippings and jottings. The things I need most I have pasted in. The chafing dish recipes are in an envelope. I just happened to have them along.”

She was turning the pages as she spoke. On one page, which she pa.s.sed by more hurriedly than the others, were a number of Kodak pictures. I caught a flash of one which made my heart beat more quickly. Surely I had a print from the same negative in my trunk.

The tiny picture was a photograph of Jack Bickett or I was very much mistaken.

What was it doing in the sc.r.a.p book of Miss Sonnot?

I put an unsteady hand out to prevent her turning the page.

It was Jack Bickett's photograph. I schooled my voice to a sort of careless surprise:

”Why! Isn't this Jack Bickett?”

She started perceptibly. ”Yes. Do you know him?”

”He is the nearest relative I have,” I returned quickly, ”a distant cousin, but brought up as my brother.”

Her face flushed. Her eyes shone with interest.

”Oh! then you must be his Margaret?” she cried.