The two girls let themselves into the house noiselessly, and,
turning out the hall-light, left for them by their mother, crept
upstairs on tiptoe; and went through the upper hall directly to
Laura's room--Cora's being nearer the sick-room. At their age it
is proper that a gayety be used three times: in anticipation, and
actually, and in after-rehearsal. The last was of course now in
order: they went to Laura's room to "talk it over." There was no
gas-fixture in this small chamber; but they found Laura's oil-lamp
burning brightly upon her writing-table.
"How queer!" said Laura with some surprise, as she closed the
door. "Mother never leaves the lamp lit for me; she's always so
afraid of lamps exploding."
"Perhaps Miss Peirce came in here to read, and forgot to turn it
out," suggested Cora, seating herself on the edge of the bed and
letting her silk wrap fall from her shoulders. "Oh, Laura, wasn't
he gorgeous. . . ."
She referred to the gallant defender of our seas, it appeared, and
while Laura undressed and got into a wrapper, Cora recounted in
detail the history of the impetuous sailor's enthrallment;--a
resume predicted three hours earlier by a gleeful whisper hissed
across the maritime shoulder as the sisters swung near each other
during a waltz: "_proposed_!"
"I've always heard they're horribly inconstant," she said,
regretfully. "But, oh, Laura, wasn't he beautiful to look at! Do
you think he's more beautiful than Val? No--don't tell me if you
do. I don't want to hear it! Val was so provoking: he didn't seem
to mind it at all. He's nothing but a big brute sometimes: he
wouldn't even admit that he minded, when I asked him. I was idiot
enough to ask; I couldn't help it; he was so tantalizing and
exasperating--laughing at me. I never knew anybody like him; he's
so sure of himself and he can be so cold. Sometimes I wonder if he
really cares about anything, deep down in his heart--anything
except himself. He seems so selfish: there are times when he
almost makes me hate him; but just when I get to thinking I do, I
find I don't--he's so deliciously strong, and there's such a _big_
luxury in being understood: I always feel he _knows_ me clear to
the bone, somehow! But, oh," she sighed regretfully, "doesn't a
uniform become a man? They ought to all wear 'em. It would look
silly on such a little goat as that Wade Trumble, though: nothing
could make him look like a whole man. Did you see him glaring at
me? Beast! I was going to be so nice and kittenish and do all my
prettiest tricks for him, to help Val with his oil company. Val
thinks Wade would come in yet, if I'D only get him in the mood to
have another talk with Val about it; but the spiteful little rat
wouldn't come near me. I believe that was one of the reasons Val
laughed at me and pretended not to mind my getting proposed to. He
_must_ have minded; he couldn't have helped minding it, really.
That's his way; he's so _mean_--he won't show things. He knows
_me_. I can't keep anything from him; he reads _me_ like a
signboard; and then about himself he keeps me guessing, and I
can't tell when I've guessed right. Ray Vilas behaved
disgustingly, of course; he was horrid and awful. I might have
expected it. I suppose Richard was wailing _his_ tiresome sorrows
on your poor shoulder----"
"No," said Laura. "He was very cheerful. He seemed glad you were
having a good time."
"He didn't look particularly cheerful at me. I never saw so slow a
man: I wonder when he's going to find out about that pendant. Val
would have seen it the instant I put it on. And, oh, Laura! isn't
George Wattling funny? He's just _soft_! He's good-looking
though," she continued pensively, adding, "I promised to motor out
to the Country Club with him to-morrow for tea."
"Oh, Cora," protested Laura, "no! Please don't!"
"I've promised; so I'll have to, now." Cora laughed. "It'll do
Mary Kane good. Oh, I'm not going to bother much with _him_--he
makes me tired. I never saw anything so complacent as that girl
when she came in to-night, as if her little Georgie was the
greatest capture the world had ever seen. . . ."
She chattered on. Laura, passive, listened with a thoughtful
expression, somewhat preoccupied. The talker yawned at last.
"It must be after three," she said, listlessly, having gone over
her evening so often that the colours were beginning to fade. She
yawned again. "Laura," she remarked absently, "I don't see how you
can sleep in this bed; it sags so."
"I've never noticed it," said her sister. "It's a very comfortable
old bed."
Cora went to her to be unfastened, reverting to the lieutenant
during the operation, and kissing the tire-woman warmly at its
conclusion. "You're always so sweet to me, Laura," she said
affectionately. "I don't know how you manage it. You're so
good"--she laughed--"sometimes I wonder how you stand me. If I
were you, I'm positive I couldn't stand me at all!" Another kiss
and a hearty embrace, and she picked up her wrap and skurried
silently through the hall to her own room.
It was very late, but Laura wrote for almost an hour in her book
(which was undisturbed) before she felt drowsy. Then she
extinguished the lamp, put the book away and got into bed.
It was almost as if she had attempted to lie upon the empty air:
the mattress sagged under her weight as if it had been a hammock;
and something tore with a ripping sound. There was a crash, and a
choked yell from a muffled voice somewhere, as the bed gave way.
For an instant, Laura fought wildly in an entanglement of what she
insufficiently perceived to be springs, slats and bedclothes with
something alive squirming underneath. She cleared herself and
sprang free, screaming, but even in her fright she remembered her
father and clapped her hand over her mouth that she might keep
from screaming again. She dove at the door, opened it, and fled
through the hall to Cora's room, still holding her hand over her
mouth.
"Cora! Oh, Cora!" she panted, and flung herself upon her sister's
bed.
Cora was up instantly; and had lit the gas in a trice. "There's a
burglar!" Laura contrived to gasp. "In my room! Under the bed!"
"What!"
"I fell on him! Something's the matter with the bed. It broke. I
fell on him!"
Cora stared at her wide-eyed. "Why, it can't be. Think how long I
was in there. Your bed broke, and you just thought there was some
one there. You imagined it."
"No, no, no!" wailed Laura. "I _heard_ him: he gave a kind of
dreadful grunt."
"Are you sure?"
"_Sure_? He wriggled--oh! I could _feel_ him!"
Cora seized a box of matches again. "I'm going to find out." "Oh,
no, no!" protested Laura, cowering.
"Yes, I am. If there's a burglar in the house I'm going to find
him!"
"We mustn't wake papa."
"No, nor mamma either. You stay here if you want to----"
"Let's call Hedrick," suggested the pallid Laura; "or put our
heads out of the window and scream for----"
Cora laughed; she was not in the least frightened. "That wouldn't
wake papa, of course! If we had a telephone I'd send for the
police; but we haven't. I'm going to see if there's any one there.
A burglar's a man, I guess, and I can't imagine myself being
afraid of any _man_!"
Laura clung to her, but Cora shook her off and went through the
hall undaunted, Laura faltering behind her. Cora lighted matches
with a perfectly steady hand; she hesitated on the threshold of
Laura's room no more than a moment, then lit the lamp.
Laura stifled a shriek at sight of the bed. "Look, look!" she
gasped.
"There's no one under it now, that's certain," said Cora, and
boldly lifted a corner of it. "Why, it's been cut all to pieces
from underneath! You're right; there was some one here. It's
practically dismembered. Don't you remember my telling you how it
sagged? And I was only sitting on the edge of it! The slats have
all been moved out of place, and as for the mattress, it's just a
mess of springs and that stuffing stuff. He must have thought the
silver was hidden there."
"Oh, oh, oh!" moaned Laura. "He _wriggled_----ugh!"
Cora picked up the lamp. "Well, we've got to go over the
house----"
"No, no!"
"Hush! I'll go alone then."
"You _can't_."
"I will, though!"
The two girls had changed places in this emergency. In her fright
Laura was dependent, clinging: actual contact with the intruder
had unnerved her. It took all her will to accompany her sister
upon the tour of inspection, and throughout she cowered behind the
dauntless Cora. It was the first time in their lives that their
positions had been reversed. From the days of Cora's babyhood,
Laura had formed the habit of petting and shielding the little
sister, but now that the possibility became imminent of
confronting an unknown and dangerous man, Laura was so shaken
that, overcome by fear, she let Cora go first. Cora had not
boasted in vain of her bravery; in truth, she was not afraid of
any man.
They found the fastenings of the doors secure and likewise those
of all the windows, until they came to the kitchen. There, the
cook had left a window up, which plausibly explained the
marauder's mode of ingress. Then, at Cora's insistence, and to
Laura's shivering horror, they searched both cellar and garret,
and concluded that he had escaped by the same means. Except
Laura's bed, nothing in the house had been disturbed; but this
eccentricity on the part of a burglar, though it indeed struck the
two girls as peculiar, was not so pointedly mysterious to them as
it might have been had they possessed a somewhat greater
familiarity with the habits of criminals whose crimes are
professional.
They finally retired, Laura sleeping with her sister, and Cora had
begun to talk of the lieutenant again, instead of the burglar,
before Laura fell asleep.
In spite of the short hours for sleep, both girls appeared at the
breakfast-table before the meal was over, and were naturally
pleased with the staccato of excitement evoked by their news. Mrs.
Madison and Miss Peirce were warm in admiration of their bravery,
but in the same breath condemned it as foolhardy.
"I never knew such wonderful girls!" exclaimed the mother, almost
tearfully. "You crazy little lions! To think of your not even
waking Hedrick! And you didn't have even a poker and were in your
bare feet--and went down in the _cellar_----"
"It was all Cora," protested Laura. "I'm a hopeless, disgusting
coward. I never knew what a coward I was before. Cora carried the
lamp and went ahead like a drum-major. I just trailed along behind
her, ready to shriek and run--or faint!"
"Could you tell anything about him when you fell on him?" inquired
Miss Peirce. "What was his voice like when he shouted?"
"Choked. It was a horrible, jolted kind of cry. It hardly sounded
human."
"Could you tell anything about whether he was a large man, or
small, or----"
"Only that he seemed very active. He seemed to be kicking. He
_wriggled_----ugh!"
They evolved a plausible theory of the burglar's motives and line
of reasoning. "You see," said Miss Peirce, much stirred, in
summing up the adventure, "he either jimmies the window, or finds
it open already, and Sarah's mistaken and she _did_ leave it open!
Then he searched the downstairs first, and didn't find anything.
Then he came upstairs, and was afraid to come into any of the
rooms where we were. He could tell which rooms had people in them
by hearing us breathing through the keyholes. He finds two rooms
empty, and probably he made a thorough search of Miss Cora's
first. But he isn't after silver toilet articles and pretty little
things like that. He wants really big booty or none, so he decides
that an out-of-the-way, unimportant room like Miss Laura's is
where the family would be most apt to hide valuables, jewellery
and silver, and he knows that mattresses have often been selected
as hiding-places; so he gets under the bed and goes to work. Then
Miss Cora and Miss Laura come in so quietly--not wanting to wake
anybody--that he doesn't hear them, and he gets caught there.
That's the way it must have been."
"But why," Mrs. Madison inquired of this authority, "why do you
suppose he lit the lamp?"
"To see by," answered the ready Miss Peirce. It was accepted as
final.
Further discussion was temporarily interrupted by the discovery
that Hedrick had fallen asleep in his chair.
"Don't bother him, Cora," said his mother. "He's finished
eating--let him sleep a few minutes, if he wants to, before he
goes to school. He's not at all well. He played too hard,
yesterday afternoon, and hurt his knee, he said. He came down
limping this morning and looking very badly. He oughtn't to run
and climb about the stable so much after school. See how utterly
exhausted he looks!--Not even this excitement can keep him awake."
"I think we must be careful not to let Mr. Madison suspect
anything about the burglar," said Miss Peirce. "It would be bad
for him."