FRIENDS OR ENEMIES?
They made their way through the long corridors, down the elevator, past
the cosy sun-parlors and into the imposing dining-room. To Patricia it
was all a splendid adventure, even without the strange, new element so
recently hinted at by her father.
"Daddy," she began, when they were settled at a comfortable table for
two in a remote corner, "I wonder if you realize how simply heavenly it
is for me to sit down to a meal like this (not to speak of all the meals
to come!) and pick out just exactly what I want to eat, without having
cooked or helped to cook them all beforehand, and knowing I won't have
to wash the dishes afterward!" She picked up the menu and scanned it
luxuriously. "Now I think some cream-of-asparagus soup and a tenderloin
steak and some nice French-fried potatoes would just suit me to-night!"
There was no response to her remark, and, glancing up curiously, she
found her father's gaze riveted on the waiter who had just arrived to
take their order. Patricia, too, turned her attention to the man, and
found him a singularly unprepossessing individual. He was of medium
height, with a swarthy skin, and black hair plastered closely down the
sides of his head. His eyebrows were extremely black and bushy, and one
eyelid drooped conspicuously. Several of his prominent front teeth were
of gold, and gleamed in a sinister manner when he spoke. His voice was
thick and husky, and had a foreign accent.
"Are you to be the regular man for this table?" questioned the Captain.
The man merely nodded in sullen affirmation.
"I want to know your name," pursued Captain Meade. "I expect to be here
some time and may keep this table. And if I'm going to have anyone about
me regularly, I prefer to call him by the name that belongs to him.
What's yours?"
"Peter Stoger," still sullenly.
"What nationality?"
"Swiss."
"Very well, Peter. You may take our order." And without further remark,
the Captain dismissed him.
"Daddy, I don't like that man," whispered Patricia when he was gone. "He
looks like an alien enemy. I don't believe he's Swiss at all. Can't we
have another? I know he's going to make me uncomfortable and worry me."
"Oh, he's all right," replied the Captain easily. "You must learn not to
mind an unprepossessing outer appearance. If he makes a good waiter,
nothing else about _him_ will matter much to us. Don't get 'spies' on
the brain."
Patricia subsided, unconvinced, and they both gazed quietly about them
for the few moments while they were waiting to be served.
"Oh, Daddy," whispered Patricia, "don't look for a minute or two, but
isn't that a lovely woman at the table diagonally at our right, just a
little behind you? She reminds me somehow of Aunt Evelyn. And there's a
pretty girl with her, just about my age, I should think, but I wonder
what makes her look so queer and cross—and sullen?"
After a proper interval, Captain Meade glanced in the direction
indicated. The woman's appearance was certainly striking enough to
attract attention in any assembly. Her wavy gray hair was elaborately
dressed, she had large, liquid brown eyes, she was beautifully if
quietly gowned, and was of imposing height and build.
"She does look a little like your Aunt Evelyn," he agreed, "only much
handsomer and more imposing. The young person with her doesn't seem to
be enjoying life, somehow."
The girl in question did indeed appear very unhappy. She was fifteen or
sixteen years old, but of a slight, fragile build that made her seem
younger. Her hair, a mass of dark curls, was tied back simply at the
nape of her neck. But her lovely face was marred by a pouting, sullen
mouth, and her big dark eyes gazed about her with an expression that
struck Patricia as one half-frightened, half-rebellious. She did not
often look about her, however, but kept her gaze in the main riveted on
her plate. Her companion chatted with her almost continuously, but she
answered only in monosyllables or not at all.
They were a strange pair. Patricia could not understand them at all, nor
could she, for the remainder of the meal, keep her eyes long from
turning toward their table. The older woman fascinated her, not only by
her handsome appearance and vague resemblance to her aunt, but also
because of some subtle attraction in her vivacious manner. Once she
looked up suddenly, caught Patricia's gaze fixed on her, and smiled in
so winning a manner that Patricia was impelled to smile back in
response. The girl puzzled her by her strange, inexplicable conduct
toward one who was so evidently interested and absorbed in her. Patricia
found herself wondering more and more what could be the relationship
between the two.
But their own meal now delightfully finished with French ice cream and
tiny cups of black coffee, Patricia and her father rose to leave the
dining-room. Their way led directly past the table that had so deeply
interested Patricia. As she approached it, she noticed that a dainty
handkerchief belonging to the older woman had fallen unheeded to the
floor at her side. Stooping to pick it up, Patricia restored it, and was
rewarded by another charming smile and a "Thank you, dear!" But in the
same instant her eye caught that of the young girl, and was held by it
for a long, tense moment. Patricia was no practiced reader of
expression, but it seemed to her that in this moment, fear, hope, dread
and longing were all mirrored successively in the beautiful dark eyes
raised to her face. Then the lids were dropped and the girl went on
eating in apparent unconcern.
Patricia and her father passed on. They had almost reached the door of
the big dining-room when Captain Meade stopped suddenly to grasp the
hand of an elderly lady seated at a table near the door.
"Mrs. Quale! by all things unexpected! How do you happen to be here? Let
me present my daughter, Patricia." Patricia made her best curtsey to one
of the quaintest little elderly ladies she thought she had ever seen.
"Delighted to know Patricia," began Mrs. Quale. "I'm here by virtue of
having my house burn down, not exactly over my head, but while I was
away in New Haven. Carelessness of old Juno, my colored cook. She would
keep too hot a range fire and overheated the chimney. At any rate, here
I am till the thing is rebuilt, and a precious long job they're making
of it, with all these war-time restrictions. So this is Patricia! I saw
her once before when she was a tiny baby. Are you staying here, Captain
Meade?"
The Captain sketched briefly for her, the reason of their presence in
the big hotel,—his wife's breakdown and departure to a sanatorium; the
closing-up of their home and his coming with Patricia for a combination
of holiday for her and lecture-program for him to this distant city, of
their disappointment about Aunt Evelyn, and their consequent
predicament.
"Well, don't worry your head another moment about Patricia," laughed
Mrs. Quale. "Fate seems to have arranged things very nicely, that I
should be here to act as her chaperon whenever necessary, and general
adviser at all times. My suite is 720, ninth floor. Be sure you call on
me soon, Patricia, and we'll get really acquainted in short order. Your
father played in my back yard as a child (his house was right next door
to ours) and so I feel quite like a grandmother to you!"
"I like Mrs. Quale, Daddy," Patricia confided to her father, as they
were ascending to their rooms in the elevator. "I like the way her hair
is fixed in those queer, old-fashioned scallops, and her dear, round,
soft face, and her jolly manner. But how is it, I've never heard you
speak of her before?"
"She is an old friend of my boyhood days," replied her father, "and, as
she said, we used to live next door to her. I don't know why I didn't
think of her right away, when your aunt's telegram came. I shouldn't
have hesitated to take you straight to her and put you in her care.
However, if her house is out of commission and she's staying here, it
answers the purpose even better. You must be sure to call on her in her
rooms to-morrow. Now, I'm afraid you're in for a lonely evening,
Patricia, for I have an important business matter to attend to, and may
be detained rather late. Telephone down to the office for anything you
need or any attention you want, but don't leave these rooms on any
consideration—short of a fire! Tomorrow we'll do the town and go out
somewhere in the evening, so I hope you won't be lonely to-night,—eh,
honey?"
"Indeed I won't be lonely. Don't you worry about me a minute!" agreed
Patricia. "I've heaps of things to do."
* * * * *
When Captain Meade had gone, Patricia flew about, busily occupying
herself with unpacking her trunk and making her bedroom a little more
homelike with a few of her own personal knickknacks and belongings. When
this occupation could be prolonged no further, she sank down in a cosy
chair by the table in the living-room, intending to read a magazine, but
in reality to dream delightfully over the events of the day and her
father's strange, half-exhilarating, half-terrifying hints.
A great hotel full of people,—literally hundreds of them,—coming and
going continually,—some of them friends, some of them enemies,
perhaps,—and she, Patricia Meade in the center of it, she and her father
the very center of a whirlpool of plots and danger, perhaps! Then more
sober thought reminded her that there was, in all probability, no
likelihood of anything particularly thrilling except in her own
imagination, and she laughed at herself for romancing so foolishly. They
would have a very delightful holiday, she and her father. He would
accomplish safely and without difficulty, the mission that occupied him,
they would return home to a reunited household at the end of the
summer,—and then he would go away, 'over there' again.
At this point in her revery, she suddenly dropped into an unpleasant
depression and decided to send for a sandwich and a glass of milk, write
a tiny note to her mother and go to bed. All at once she realized how
very tired she was and how the excitement and exhilaration had all
evaporated, leaving only weariness in their place. Rather timidly she
telephoned her order to the office and sat down again to await its
arrival.
Five minutes later, she answered a knock at the door, to find the
grinning, implike bell-boy of their first encounter, standing there with
a tray.
"Didn't have no chicken left, ma'am, so I got you tongue. Best I could
do!" he vouchsafed.
"Oh, thanks! That will do just as well," she replied, then something
impelled her to inquire, "Do you always answer the calls in this
corridor?"
"Yep,—at least I try to work it that way. I got a reason!" he ended
darkly.
"A reason? What is it?" she asked idly.
"Not allowed to tell. State secret. Governor forbids it!" he grinned;
and Patricia found herself laughing as much at his serio-comic
expression as at his very apparent nonsense. "Anything else wanted?" he
ended.
"Nothing but your name," she replied, following her father's tactics.
"If you're going to be around here regularly, my father would like to
know it."
"Oh, it's Chet, just Chet Jackson!" he said, apparently a trifle
dumfounded to think that anyone should care to know it. To the hotel at
large he was only 'Number 27.'
"Well, goodnight. That will be all, I think." And Patricia turned back
into the room to lay the tray on the table. But as she retraced her
steps to close the door, she suddenly remembered that she had meant to
order ice-water for the night also, and walked out into the corridor to
see if Chester were still in sight. He was not, however, and she turned
back toward her own door, murmuring, "Oh, well, it doesn't really
matter. I don't want to bother 'phoning down again. Daddy can send for
it when he comes in."
What impelled her, just at that instant, to turn her head and glance
over her shoulder, she never quite knew. Perhaps if she had not, if she
had gone quietly in and closed her door, all future events might have
been different. At any rate, turn her head she did, drawn by some
mysterious power, and beheld a curious sight.
A door diagonally opposite her own, across the corridor, was standing a
trifle ajar. It had not been so while she was talking to the bell-boy,
of that she was positive, nor had she heard the faintest sound of its
being opened. And in the opening was framed a face, gazing at her
absorbedly, intently. Patricia's heart gave a sudden leap. It was the
face of the young girl she had noticed in the dining-room.
So unexpected to both was this encounter of eyes, that for a long
instant, neither could remove her gaze. Patricia was first to recover
her poise; moreover, truth to tell, she was even a trifle pleased at
this opportunity to break the growing monotony of the evening. She
smiled her friendliest smile at the face across the corridor, and with
its resultant effect on the girl in the opposite doorway, she was not a
little astonished. The expression in the big, black eyes changed
suddenly from watchfulness to wonder, and a slow, reluctant answering
smile curved the sullen mouth. The effect was like a shaft of sunlight
breaking through a black cloud.
"I was looking for our bell-boy," Patricia called across laughingly and
informally. "He escaped before I could speak about bringing ice-water."
The girl in the opposite doorway suddenly realized that her presence
too, might call for some explanation.
"I was looking for my—ah—for Mme. Vanderpoel," she hesitated. "She has
gone out. I am a little lonely—and was watching for her—to return." She
spoke with a noticeably foreign accent and her manner was reticent and
confused. But Patricia, for some inexplicable reason felt immediately
drawn to her. The girl was lonely. So was she. What possible objection
could there be to spending a while in each other's company?
"Why, I'm lonely, too," she vouchsafed. "My father was to be away all
the evening. Won't you come in and sit with me awhile? I've a couple of
sandwiches that we can divide, or I can send for more. Do come!"
For a moment it seemed as if the girl were about to consent. A
surprised, dimpling smile lit her face for an instant, and she replied,
"Oh, thanks! Since you are so—"
At this moment the door of the room adjoining hers opened and a waiter
came out, bearing in his hands a tray of used dishes, and passed
directly between them, down the corridor. He glanced neither to the
right nor left, and disappeared in a moment down the turning at the end
of the hall. Patricia realized with a tiny qualm of dislike that it was
the waiter of her own table. But his passing had broken the spell of the
new acquaintance.
"I thank you—but—but this evening I must stay in the room," the girl
resumed, inexplicably contradicting what she had plainly intended to say
at first. The bright smile was gone. Her face had again assumed the
clouded, sullen expression. Patricia was thoroughly puzzled.
"Well, that's too bad!" was all she could find to reply. "Same here, or
perhaps I could run over to you. Are you staying here long?"
"I think so. I am not sure how long."
"Oh, well, then we'll have plenty of time to get acquainted. Goodnight!"
Patricia ended pleasantly, as she closed her door.
But sitting alone and nibbling her sandwiches later, she found herself
vexed with many puzzling surmises. Who was this strange, interesting,
appealing foreign girl? What was her relation to the beautiful woman she
called 'Mme. Vanderpoel'? Why had she appeared to assent to the
invitation so gladly, and suddenly retracted after the passing of the
man, Peter Stoger?
"I like her, though," thought Patricia confusedly, "And yet I can't for
the life of me tell why. I can't make her out. I don't believe what she
said about looking for that woman to come back. I think that was only an
excuse. I firmly believe she was watching _me_. But why? There's
something queer about the whole thing. But, no matter what happens, I'm
going to make a desperate effort to get better acquainted with her. I
believe we're going to be friends."