k
six. He had been studying with a slight shock the changes that had taken
place in the few days since he had seen her. For the first time the
suspicion crossed his mind that she might be seriously ill. Throughout
their talk he had observed things, trifles, perhaps, but significant,
which, if they had occurred before, had escaped him.

Susanne, Mrs. Ordway's maid, though modestly in the background, was
rarely out of sight; and a white-capped nurse, till now an occasional
and illusive vision in the halls, blew in and out of the sick-room like
a breeze, bringing liquids in glasses, which the patient obediently
swallowed. Laurie, his attention once caught, took it all in. But his
face gave no hint of his new knowledge, and the eyes of Louise still met
his with the challenge they turned on every one these days--a challenge
that definitely forbade either understanding or sympathy.

"The real problem is why you ever come." She spoke lightly, but looked
at him with genuine affection. Laurie was one of her favorites, her
prime favorite, indeed, next to Bob and Barbara. He smiled at her with
tender significance.

"You know why I come."

"I do," she agreed, "perfectly. I know you're quite capable of flirting
with me, too, if I'd let you, you absurd boy. Laurie,"--for a moment or
two she was almost serious--"why don't you fall in love?"

"And this from you?"

"Don't be foolish. You know I like your ties," she interpolated kindly.
"But, really, isn't there some one?"

Laurie turned his profile to her, pulled a lock of hair over his brow,
clasped his hands between his knees, and posed esthetically.

"Do you know," he sighed, "I begin to think that, just possibly,
perhaps, there's a slight chance--that there is!"

"Be serious. Tell me about her."

"Well, she's a girl." He produced this confidence with ponderous
solemnity. "She lives across the square from me," he added.

"Things brighten," commented Louise, drily. "Go on."

"She's mysterious. I don't know who she is, or anything about her. But I
know that she's in trouble."

"Of course she is! I have never known a mysterious maiden that wasn't,"
commented the woman of the world. "What's her particular variety of
trouble?"

Laurie reflected.

"That's hard to say," he brought out at last. "But it appears to be
mixed up with an offensive person in a crumpled blue suit who answers to
the name of Herbert Ransome Shaw. Have you ever heard of him?"

Louise wrinkled her