HARRIET IN DANGER
Harriet Hamlin was restless and nervous all the next day. Even Mr.
Hamlin, noticing his daughter's nervous manner at luncheon, suggested
that she take her friends out to pay some calls. So Bab put forth her
plea that she wished to make another visit to the home of the Chinese
minister. As the girls had not yet paid their luncheon call at the
embassy Harriet agreed to take them to see Wee Tu. Before she left the
house Harriet called up her dressmaker and had a long confidential talk
with her over the telephone. She seemed in better spirits afterwards.
The Chinese minister's wife, Lady Tu, was receiving. As there were no men
in the drawing-room, her daughter, Wee Tu, sat among the young girls as
quiet and demure as a picture on a fan.
Bab managed to persuade the little girl into a corner to have a quiet
chat with her. But Miss Wee Tu was difficult to draw out. Across the
room, Harriet Hamlin chanced to mention the name of Peter Dillon. At
once the little Chinese girl's expression changed. The change was very
slight. Hardly a shade of emotion crossed her unexpressive, Oriental
face, but curious Barbara was watching for that very change. She
remembered the young girl had been affected by Peter's appearance during
their former visit.
"Do you like Mr. Dillon?" inquired Bab. She had no excuse for her
question except her own wilful curiosity.
But Wee Tu was not to be caught napping.
"Lige?" she answered, with a soft rising inflection that made the "k" in
"like" sound as "g." "I do not know what Americans mean by the
word--'Lige.' You 'lige' so many people. A Chinese girl 'liges' only a
few--her parents, her relatives; sometimes she 'liges' her husband, but
not always."
"Don't like your husband!" exclaimed Bab in surprise. "Why, what do
you mean?"
The little Chinese maiden was confused both by the American word and the
American idea.
"The Chinese girl has respect for her husband; she does what he tells her
to do, but she does not all the time 'lige' him, because her father has
chosen him for her husband. I shall marry a prince, when I go back to
China, but he is 'verra' old."
"Oh, I see!" Bab rejoined. "You thought I meant 'love' when I said
'like.' It is quite different to love a person." Bab smiled wisely. "To
love is to like a great deal."
"Then I love this Mr. Peter Dillon," said the Chinese girl sweetly.
Bab gasped in shocked surprise.
"It is most improper that I say so, is it not?" smiled Miss Wee Tu. "But
so many things that American girls do seem improper to Chinese ladies.
And I do like this Mr. Peter very much. He comes always to our house. He
is 'verra' intimate with my father. He talks to him a long, long time and
they have Chinese secrets together. Then he talks with me so that I can
understand him. Many people will not trouble with a Chinese girl, who is
only fifteen, even if her father is a minister."
Barbara was overwhelmed with Wee Tu's confidence, but she knew she
deserved it as a punishment for her curiosity. The strangest thing was
that the young Chinese girl spoke in a low, even voice, without the least
change of expression in her long, almond eyes. Any one watching her would
have thought she was talking of the weather.
"I go back to China when my father's time in the United States is over
and then I get married. It makes no difference. But while I am in your
country I play I am free, like an American girl, and I do what I like
inside my own head."
"It's very wrong," Barbara argued hastily. "It is much better to trust to
your parents."
"Yes?" answered Wee Tu quietly. Bab was vexed that Peter Dillon's
careless Irish manners had also charmed this little Oriental maiden. But
Bab was wise enough to understand that Wee Tu's interest was only that of
a child who was grateful to the young man for his kindness.
Barbara rose to join her friends, who were at this moment saying good-bye
to their hostess.
"It is the Chinese custom," Lady Tu remarked graciously, "to make little
presents to our guests. Will not Mr. Hamlin's daughter and her four
friends receive these poor offerings?"
A servant handed the girls five beautiful, carved tortoise shell boxes,
containing exquisite sets of combs for their hair, the half dozen or more
that Chinese women wear.
"I felt ashamed of my wind-blown hair when Lady Tu presented us with
these combs," Grace exclaimed, just before the little party reached home.
They had paid a dozen more calls since their visit to the Chinese
Embassy. "I suppose Chinese women are shocked at the way American girls
wear their hair."
"Yes, but we can't take three hours to fix ours," laughed Mollie, running
up the steps of the Hamlin house. In the front hall Mollie spied an
immense box of roses. They were for Harriet. Harriet picked up the box
languidly and started upstairs. She had talked very little during the
afternoon, and had seemed unlike herself.
"Aren't you going to open your flowers, Harriet?" Mollie pleaded. "I am
crazy to see them."
"I'll open them if it pleases you, Mollie," Harriet returned gently. The
great box was crowded with long-stemmed American beauties and violets.
"Have some posies, girls?" Harriet said generously, holding out her arms
filled with flowers. For a long time afterwards the "Automobile Girls"
remembered how beautiful Harriet looked as she stood there, her face very
pale, her black hair and hat outlined against the dark oak woodwork with
the great bunch of American beauties in her arms.
"Of course we don't want your posies, Lady Harriet," Mollie answered
affectionately. "Here is the note to tell you who sent them to you." But
Harriet went on to her room without showing enough interest in her gift
to open the letter.
After dinner Harriet complained of a headache, and went immediately to
her room. The "Automobile Girls" were going out to a theater party, which
was being given in their honor by their old friends, Mrs. Post and Hugh.
Harriet sent word she would have to be excused. When Ruth put her head
into Harriet's room to say good-bye, just before she started for the
theater, she thought she heard her cousin crying.
"Harriet, dear, do let me stay with you," Ruth pleaded. "I am afraid you
are feeling worse than you will let us know."
But Harriet insisted that she desired only to be left alone. Feeling
strangely unhappy about her cousin, Ruth, at last joined the
theater party.
Mr. Hamlin did not leave the house immediately after dinner, although he
had an engagement to spend the evening at the home of Mrs. Wilson. She
had asked him, only that morning, to come. Mr. Hamlin was also troubled
about his daughter. He had not been so unobservant that he had not seen
the change in her. She was less animated, less talkative. Mr. Hamlin
feared Harriet was not well. Though he was stern and unsympathetic with
Harriet, he was genuinely frightened if she were in the least ill.
So it was with unusual gentleness that he tapped lightly on
Harriet's door.
"I am all right, Mary, thank you," Harriet replied, believing her maid
to be outside. "Go to bed whenever you please. I shall fall asleep
after a while."
Mr. Hamlin cleared his throat and Harriet started nervously. Why was her
father standing outside her door? Had he learned of her bill to her
dressmaker?
"I do not wish to disturb you, Harriet," Mr. Hamlin began awkwardly. "I
only desired to know if I could do anything for you."
"No, Father," poor Harriet replied wearily. As Mr. Hamlin turned away,
she sprang up and started to run after him. At her own door she stopped.
She heard her father's stern voice giving an order to a servant, and her
sudden resolution died within her. A few moments later the front door
closed behind him and her opportunity had passed.
An hour afterwards, when the house was quiet and the servants nowhere
about, Harriet Hamlin slipped cautiously downstairs. She was gone only a
few minutes. But when she came back to her own room, she opened a private
drawer in her bureau and hid something in it. Harriet then threw herself
on her bed and lay for a long time with her eyes wide open, staring
straight ahead of her.
Just before midnight, when she heard the gay voices of her friends
returning from the theater, and when Ruth tripped softly to her bedroom,
Harriet lay with closed eyes, apparently fast asleep.
The next morning Harriet was really ill. Her hand trembled so while she
poured the breakfast coffee that she spilled some of it on the
tablecloth. When Mr. Hamlin spoke to her sharply she burst into tears and
left the room, leaving her father ashamed of himself, and the "Automobile
Girls" so embarrassed that they ate the rest of their breakfast in
painful silence. Ruth did dart one indignant glance at her uncle, which
Mr. Hamlin saw, but did not in his heart resent.
Harriet was willing, that morning, to have Ruth come into her darkened
bedroom and sit by her bed. For Harriet's wakeful night had left her
slightly feverish.
"I don't want to disturb you, Harriet," Bab apologized, coming softly to
the door. "But some one has just telephoned for you. The person at the
telephone has a message for you, but whoever it is refuses to give his
name. What shall I do!"
Harriet sat up in bed, quickly, a hunted expression on her beautiful
face. "Tell Mr. Peter Dillon that I will keep my word," Harriet answered
angrily. "He is not to worry about me again."
"Is that your message?" Bab queried wonderingly. "It was not Mr.
Dillon's voice."
Harriet laughed hysterically. "Of course not!" she returned. "Oh, I know
you girls are wondering why I am behaving so strangely. And I am
breaking my word to tell you. But I must tell some one. I don't care
what Mrs. Wilson and Peter Dillon say, I know I can trust you. I have
decided to help Mrs. Wilson and Peter play their silly joke on Father
and the State Department! Oh, you needn't look so horrified, girls. It
is only a joke. The papers are about some Chinese business. I have them
hid in my bureau drawer."
Harriet nodded toward her dressing-table, while Ruth and Bab stood
looking at each other, speechless with horror, the same idea growing in
their minds.
"When Father comes to look for his stupid papers he'll find them gone,
and, of course, will think he has misplaced them," Harriet continued. "He
will be dreadfully worried for a little while; then Mrs. Wilson will
return the papers to me and I will slip them back in their old place, and
Father will never know what has happened. Mrs. Wilson and Peter have
vowed they will never betray me, and I have promised not to betray them.
If I were to be caught, I suppose Father would never forgive me. But I'll
take good care that he doesn't find out about it."
"Harriet, do please give up this foolish plan!" Ruth entreated earnestly.
"I know you are doing something wrong. Mrs. Wilson and Mr. Dillon both
know that Uncle William's papers are too valuable to be played with. Why,
they belong to the United States Government, not to him! Harriet, I
implore you, do not touch your father's papers!"
Harriet shook her head obstinately. She was absolutely adamant. Ruth
pleaded, scolded, in vain. Bab did not say a word nor enter a protest.
She was too frightened. All of a sudden a veil had been rent asunder. Now
she believed she understood what Peter Dillon and Mrs. Wilson had planned
from the beginning. They were spies in the service of some higher power.
The papers that Harriet thought were to be used for a joke on her father
were really to be sold! Was not some state secret to be betrayed? Ever
since Bab's arrival in Washington it had looked as though Peter Dillon
and Mrs. Wilson had been working toward this very end. Having failed with
her they had turned their attention to poor Harriet. But Mrs. Wilson and
Peter Dillon must be only hired tools! Shrewdly Barbara Thurston recalled
her recent conversation with innocent Wee Tu: "Mr. Dillon and my father,
they have Chinese secrets together." Could a certain distinguished and
wisely silent Oriental gentleman be responsible for the thrilling drama
about to be enacted? Bab was never to know positively, and she wisely
kept her suspicion to herself.
"I do wish, Ruth, you and Bab would go away and leave me alone," Harriet
protested. "I shall be well enough to get up for luncheon, if you will
let me take a nap. I don't see any harm in playing this joke on Father.
At any rate, I have quite made up my mind to go through with my part in
it and I won't give up my plan. You can tell Father if you choose, of
course. I cannot prevent that. I know I was foolish to have confided in
you. But, unless you are despicable tale bearers, the papers in my bureau
drawer will go out of this house in a few hours! I don't see any harm in
their disappearing for a little while. Father will have them back in a
few days. Please go!"
Yet with all Harriet's air of bravado, however, there was one point in
her story which she did not mention. In return for her delivery of
certain of her father's state papers Mrs. Wilson and Peter Dillon had
promised to advance to Harriet the five hundred dollars necessary to pay
her dressmaker. Harriet had agreed only to receive it as a loan. And she
tried to comfort herself with the idea that her friends were only doing
her a kindness in exchange for the favor she was to do for them. Still,
the thought of the money worried Harriet. But how else was she to be
saved from the weight of her stern father's displeasure?