After I ate my supper I relieved Amanda King, who runs the news stand in
the daytime, when she isn't laid off with the toothache.
Mr. Sam was right. All the women had on their puffs, and they were
sitting in a half-circle on each side of the door. Mrs. Sam was there,
looking frightened and anxious, and standing near the card-room door was
Miss Patty. She was all in white, with two red spots on her cheeks, and
I thought if her prince could have seen her then he would pretty nearly
have eaten her up. Mr. Thoburn was there, of course, pretending to read
the paper, but every now and then he looked at his watch, and once
he got up and paced off the lobby, putting down the length in his
note-book. I didn't need a mind-reader to tell me he was figuring the
cost of a new hardwood floor and four new rugs.
Mr. Sam came to the news stand, and he was so nervous he could hardly
light a cigarette.
"I've had a message from one of the detectives," he said. "They've
traced him to Salem, Ohio, but they lost him there. If we can only hold
on this evening--! Look at that first-night audience!"
"Mr. Pierce is due in three minutes," I told him. "I hope you told him
to kiss his sister."
"Nothing of the sort," he objected. "Why should he kiss her? Mrs. Van
Alstyne is afraid of the whole thing: she won't stand for that."
"I guess she could endure it," I remarked dryly.
"It's astonishing how much of that sort of thing a woman can bear."
He looked at me and grinned.
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