Chambers Robert William
The Laughing Girl

"Come in," said I, laying aside my work – some verses I had been composing – trifles – trifles.

Thusis came in.

As the hostile Trojans rose unanimously to their feet when Helen entered – rose in spite of their disapproval – so I got up instinctively and placed a chair for her. She merely dropped me a curtsy and remained standing.

"Please be seated," said I, looking at her with uneasy suspicion.

"Monsieur O'Ryan forgets himself," she protested in the softest and most winningly demure of voices. But I saw the very devil laughing at me out of her gray eyes.

"I don't know why a man should receive his servants standing," said I. "Sit down," I added coldly, seating myself.

"Pardon, but I could not venture to seat myself in Monsieur's presence – "

Perfectly conscious of the subtle mockery in her voice and manner, I told her sharply to be seated and explain her errand. She curtsied again – a most devilishly impudent little curtsey – and seated herself with the air of a saint on the loose.

"My thisther Clelia, and my friend Jothephine Vannith, and Raoul Dethpreth requetht the honor of rethpectfully prethenting themthelves to Monsieur's graciouth conthideration," she said with an intentional lisp that enraged me.

"Very well," I replied briefly. "You may go back and get rid of your lisp, and then explain to them that you are to be waitress and general housekeeper here, and that they are to take their orders from me through you."

"Yes, Monsieur."

I don't think she relished my dry bluntness for I saw a slight color gather in her cheeks.

I thought to myself that I'd come very close to spoiling the girl by my silliness in the cellar. I'd made a fool of myself, but I'd do it no more in spite of her heavenly resemblance to my photograph.

"That will be all at present, Thusis," I said coldly. "Come back in half an hour for orders. And see that you wear a clean apron."

Her lovely face was quite red as she passed out, forgetting to curtsey. As for my own emotions they were mixed.

One thing was certain; there was going to be a show-down between Thusis and me before very long.

If she were indeed the peasant girl she pretended to be, she'd recover her balance when I did, and learn her proper place. If she were, perhaps, a child of the bourgeoisie – some educated and superior young girl compelled to take service through family misfortune – and I now entertained no further doubt that this was really the case – she had nobody but herself to blame for my present attitude.

But! – but if, by any inexplicable chance, her social circumstances were, or had once been, even better than bourgeoise, then the girl was a political agent in masquerade. But, whoever she was, she had no business to presume on her wit and insolent beauty to amuse herself at my expense. And if she had really been sent by the Swiss police into my household to keep an eye on me she was going about it in a silly and stupid manner.

For such surveillance I didn't care a pewter penny. Spies had lagged after me ever since I entered Switzerland. It was rather amusing than otherwise.

But, as far as Thusis was concerned, I now decided that, no matter what she was or had been, she had voluntarily become my servant; and I intended that she should not again forget that fact.

As I sat there at my desk, grimly planning discipline for Thusis, I chanced to look up at the photograph of "The Laughing Girl"; and stern thoughts melted like frost at sunrise.

How amazingly, how disturbingly the lovely pictured features reminded me of Thusis!

The resemblance, of course, must be pure accident, but what an astonishing coincidence!

Musing there at my desk, possessed by dreamy and pleasing thoughts, I gradually succumbed to the spell which my treasured photograph invariably wove for me.

And I unlocked my desk and took out my verses.

They had been entitled "To Thusis." This I had scratched out and under the canceled dedication I had written: "To a Photograph."

I had quite forgotten that I had told Thusis to report for orders in half an hour: I was deeply, sentimentally absorbed in my poem. Then there came a low knocking; and at the mere prospect of again encountering my exceedingly impudent housekeeper I experienced a little shock of emotion which started my heart thumping about in a most silly and exasperating manner.

"Come in!" I said angrily.

She entered. I kept my seat with an effort.

"Well," said I in an impatient voice, "what is it now?"

Thusis looked at me intently for a moment, then the little devils that hid in her gray eyes suddenly laughed at me, totally discrediting the girl's respectful and almost serious face with its red mouth slightly drooping.

"Monsieur has orders for the household?" she inquired in her sweet, grave voice of a child.

That floored me. I had spoken about giving my orders through her. I didn't know what orders to give.

"Certainly," said I, – "hum-hum! Let me see. – Let – me – see," I repeated. "Yes – certainly – the orders must be given – hum-hum! – "

But what the devil I was to order I hadn't the vaguest idea.

"We'll have luncheon at one," I said, desperately. She made no observation. I grew redder.

"We'll dine, too," I added. Her gray eyes mocked me but her mouth drooped respectfully.

"For further orders," said I, "c-come b-back in half an hour. No, don't do that! Wait a moment. I – I really don't know what sort of an establishment I have here. Hadn't I better make a tour of inspection?"

"Monsieur will please himself."

"I think I'd better inspect things."

"What things, Monsieur?"

"The – the linen press – er – the batterie-de-cuisine– all that sort of thing. Do you think I'd better do it, Thusis?"

"Would Monsieur know any more about them if he inspects these things?" she inquired so guilelessly, so smilingly, that I surrendered then and there.

"Thusis," I said, "I don't know anything about such matters. They bore me. Be a nice child and give what orders are necessary. Will you?"

"If Monsieur wishes."

"I do wish it. Please – take full charge and run this ranch for me and bring me the bills. You see I trust you, Thusis, although you have not been very respectful to me."

"I am sorry, Monsieur," she said with a tragic droop of her lovely mouth. But her eyes belied her.

"Thusis?"

"Monsieur?"

"I won't ask you who you are – "

"Merci, M'sieu."

"Don't interrupt me. What I am going to ask you, is, why do you continually and secretly make fun of me – "

"M'sieu!"

"You do!"

"I, M'sieu?"

"Yes, you, Thusis. Always there is a hint of mockery in your smile, – always the hidden amusement as though, in me, you find something ridiculous – "

"Please! – "

" – Something secretly and delightfully absurd – "

"But you know you are funny," she said, looking a trifle scared at her own temerity.

"What!" I demanded angrily.

"Please be just, Mr. O'Ryan. I minded my own business until you tempted me."

That was perfectly true but I denied it.

"You know," she said, "when a man finds a girl attractive the girl always knows it, even when she's a servant… And certain circumstances made it much more amusing than you realize… I mean to be respectful. I am your servant… But you know very well that it is funny."

"What is funny?"

"The circumstances. You found me attractive. It mortified you. And the way you took it was intensely amusing to me."

"Why?"

"Because you are you; and I am I. Because the fact that you found your cook attractive horrified you. That was intensely funny to me. And when, waiving the degradation, you actually attempted to kiss your own cook – "

Laughter burst from her lips in a silvery shower of rippling notes which enchanted and infuriated me at the same time.

I waited, very red, to control my voice; then I got up and set a chair for her. And she dropped onto it without protest.

"What are you doing in my household?" I asked drily.

At that her laughter ceased and she gave me a straight sweet look.

"Don't you really know?"

"Of course not. You're an agent of some sort. That's evident. Are you here to watch me?"

"Dear Mr. O'Ryan," she said lightly, "have I been at any pains to deceive you? I'm not really a servant; you learned that very easily. And I let you learn it – " She laughed: – "and it was a very pretty compliment I paid you when I let you learn it."

"I don't understand you," I said.

"It's very simple. My name really is Thusis; I wish to remain in your employment. So do my friends. We will prove good servants. You shall be most comfortable, – you and your amusing friend, Mr. Smith —the Norwegian."

I smiled in spite of my suspicion and perplexity, and Thusis smiled too, such a gay little confidential smile that I could not resist the occult offer of confidence that it very plainly implied.

"You are not here to keep tabs on me?" I demanded.

"You very nice young man, of course not!"

"Do you really think I'm nice, Thusis?"

"I think you're adorable!"

The rush of emotion to the head made me red and dizzy. I had never been talked to that way by a young girl. I didn't know it was done.

And another curious thing about this perfectly gay and unembarrassed eulogy of hers, she said it as frankly and spontaneously as she might have spoken to another girl or to an attractive child: there was absolutely no sex consciousness about her.

"Are you going to let us remain and be your very faithful and diligent servants?" she asked, mischievously amused at the shock she had administered.

"Thusis," I said, "it's going to be rather difficult for me to treat you as a servant. And if your friends are of the same quality – "

"It's perfectly easy," she insisted. "If we presume, correct us. If we are slack, punish us. Be masculine and exacting; be bad tempered about your food – " She laughed delightfully – "Raise the devil with us if we misbehave."

I didn't believe I could do that and said so; and she turned on me that bewildering smile and sat looking at me very intently, with her white hands clasped in her lap.

"You don't think we're a band of robbers conspiring to chloroform you and Mr. Smith some night and make off with your effects?" she inquired.

We both laughed.

"You're very much puzzled, aren't you, Mr. O'Ryan," she continued.

"I am, indeed."

"But you're so nice – so straight and clean yourself – that you'd give me the benefit of any doubt, wouldn't you?"

"Yes."

"That's because you're a sportsman. That's because you play all games squarely." Her face became serious; her gray eyes met mine and seemed to look far into them.

"Your country is neutral, isn't it?" she said.

"Yes."

"You are not."

"I have my ideas."

"And ideals," she added.

"Yes, I have them still, Thusis."

"So have I," she said. "I am trying to live up to them. If you will let me."

"I'll even help you – "

"No! Just let me alone. That is all I ask of you." Her youthful face grew graver. "But that is quite enough to ask of you. Because by letting me alone you are incurring danger to yourself.

"Why do you tell me?"

"Because I wish to be honest with you. If you retain me as your servant and accept me and my friends as such, – even if you live here quietly and blamelessly, obeying the local and Federal laws and making no inquiries concerning me or my three friends, – yet, nevertheless, you may find yourself in very serious trouble before many days."

"Political trouble?"

"All kinds of trouble, Mr. O'Ryan."

There was a silence; she sat there with slender fingers tightly interlocked as though under some sort of nervous tension, but the faint hint of a smile in the corners of her mouth – which seemed to be part of her natural expression – remained.

She said: "And more than that: if you let us remain as your servants, we shall trust to you and to Mr. Smith that neither one of you by look or word or gesture would ever convey to anybody the slightest hint that I and my friends are not exactly what we appear to be – your household servants."

"Thusis," said I, "what the deuce are you up to?"

"What am I up to?" She laughed outright: – "Let me see! First – " counting on her fingers, "I am trying to find a way to live up to my ideals; second, I am going to try to bring happiness to many, many people; third, I am prepared to sacrifice myself, my friends, my nearest and dearest." … She lifted her clear eyes: "I am quite ready to sacrifice you, too," she said.

I smiled: "That would cost you very little," I said.

There was another short silence. The girl looked at me with a curious intentness as though mentally appraising me – trying to establish in her mind any value I might represent to her – if any.

"It's like an innocent bystander being hit by a bullet in a revolution," she murmured: "it's a pity: but it is unavoidable, sometimes."

"I represent this theoretical and innocent bystander?"

"I'm afraid you do, Mr. O'Ryan; the chances are that you'll get hurt."

A perfectly inexplicable but agreeable tingling sensation began to invade me, amounting almost to exhilaration. Was it the Irish in me, subtly stirred, by the chance of a riot? Was it a possible opportunity to heave a brick, impartially and with Milesian enthusiasm?

"Thusis," said I, "there is only one question I must ask you to answer."

"I know what it is."

"What?"

"You are going to remind me that, to-day, the whole world is divided into two parts; that the greatest war of all times is being waged between the forces of light and of darkness. And you are going to ask me where I stand."

"I am."

The girl rose; so did I. Then she stepped forward, took my right hand and rested her other upon it.

"I stand for light, for the world's freedom, for the liberties of the weaker, for the self-determination of all peoples. I stand for their right to the pursuit of happiness. I stand for the downfall of all tyranny – the tyranny of the mob as well as the tyranny of all autocrats. That is where I stand, Mr. O'Ryan… Where do you stand?"

"Beside you."

She dropped my hand with an excited little laugh:

"I was certain of that. In Berne I learned all about you. I took no chances in coming here. I took none in being frank with you." She began to laugh again, mischievously: "Perhaps I took chances in being impertinent to you. There is a dreadful and common vein of frivolity in me. I'm a little reckless, too. I adore absurd situations, and the circumstances – when you unwillingly discovered that I was attractive – appealed to me irresistibly. And I am afraid I was silly enough – common enough – malicious enough to thoroughly enjoy it… But," she added naïvely, "you gave me rather a good scare when you threatened to kiss me."

"I'm glad of that," said I with satisfaction.

"Of course," she remarked, "that would have been the climax of absurdity."

"Would it?"

"Certainly."

"Why?"

"Fancy such a nice young man kissing his cook in the cellar."

"That isn't what you meant."

"Isn't it?" she asked airily.

"No."

"What did I mean then, Mr. O'Ryan?"

"I don't know," said I thoughtfully.

She gave me one of her smiling but searching looks, in which there seemed a hint of apprehension. Then, apparently satisfied by her scrutiny, she favored me with a bewitching smile in which I thought to detect a slight trace of relief.

"You will keep me, then?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Thank you!"

She stretched out her beautiful hand impulsively: I took it.

"Thanks – and good-by," she said a trifle gravely, Then, with a shadow of the smile still lingering: "Good-by: because, from now on, it is to be master and servant. We must both remember that."

I was silent.

"You will remember, won't you?" she said – the laughter flashed in her eyes: – "especially if we ever happen to be in the cellar together?"

I said, forcing a smile and my voice not quite steady: "Suppose we finish that scene, now, Thusis?"

"Good heavens!" she said: – "and the Admiral watching us!" She drew her hand from mine and pointed at the picture over my mantel.

"I'm afraid of that man," she said. "The cellar is less terrifying – "

"Thusis!"

But she laughed and slipped through the door. "Good-by, Don Michael!" she called back softly from the stairs.

I walked back slowly to the center of my room and for a long time I stood there quite motionless, staring fixedly at the Admiral.

V
AN ODD SONG

"There's one thing certain," thought I; "my household personnel is altogether too pulchritudinous for a man like Smith, and it begins to worry me."

Considerably disturbed in my mind I reconnoitered Smith's rooms, and found him, as I suspected, loitering there on pretense of re-arranging the contents of his bureau-drawers.

Now Smith had no legitimate business there; it was Clelia's hour to do his rooms. But, as I say, I already had noticed his artless way of hanging about at that hour, and several times during the last two weeks I had encountered him conversing with the girl while she, her blonde hair bound up in a beguiling dust-cap, and otherwise undeniably fetching, leaned at ease on her broom and appeared quite willing to be cornered and conversed with.

My advent always galvanized this situation; Clelia instantly became busy with her broom and duster, and Smith usually pretended he had been inquiring of Clelia where I might be found.

He attempted the same dishonesty now, and, with every symptom of delight, cordially hailed me and inquired where I'd been keeping myself since breakfast.

"I've been out doors," said I coldly, "where I hoped – if I did not really expect – to find you."

This sarcasm put a slight crimp in his assurance, and he accompanied me out with docile alacrity, which touched me.

"It's too good a household to spoil," said I. "A little innocent gaiety – a bit of persiflage en passant – that doesn't interfere with discipline. But this loitering about the vicinity of little Clelia's too brief skirts is almost becoming a habit with you."

"She's a nice girl," returned Smith, vaguely.

"Surely. And you're a very nice young man; but you know as well as I do that we can't arrange our social life to include the circle below stairs."

"You mean, in the event of travelers arriving, they might misconstrue such a democracy?"

"Certainly, they'd misjudge it. We couldn't explain why our cook was playing the piano in the living-room or why Clelia laid aside her dust-pan for a cup of tea with us at five, could we?"

"Or why Thusis and you went trout fishing together," he added pleasantly.

A violent blush possessed my countenance. So he was aware of that incident! He had gone to Zurich that day. I hadn't mentioned it.

"Smith," said I, "these are war times. To catch fish is to conserve food. Under no other circumstances – "

"I understand, of course! Two can catch more fish than one. Which caught it?"

"Thusis," I admitted. "Thusis happened to know where these Swiss trout hide and how to catch them. Naturally I was glad to avail myself of her knowledge."

"Very interesting. You need no further instruction, I fancy."

"To become proficient," said I, "another lesson or two – possibly – " I paused out near the fountain to stoop over and break off a daisy. From which innocent blossom, absent-mindedly, I plucked the snowy petals one by one as I sauntered along beside Smith.

Presently he began to mutter to himself. At first I remained sublimely unconscious of what he was murmuring, then I caught the outrageous words: "Elle m'aime – un peu – beaucoup – passablement – pas-du-tout – "

"What's that?" I demanded, glaring at him. "What are you gabbling about?"

He seemed surprised at my warmth. I hurled the daisy from me; we turned and strode back in hostile silence toward the bottling house.

My farmer, Raoul Despres, was inside and the door stood open. We could hear the humming of the dynamo. Evidently, obeying my orders of yesterday, he had gone in to look over and report upon the condition of the plant with a view to resuming business where my recent uncle had left off.

We could see his curly black head, and athletic figure inside the low building. As he prowled hither and thither investigating the machinery he was singing blithely to himself:

 
"Crack-brain-cripple-arm
You have done a heap of harm —
You and yours and all your friends!
Now you'll have to make amends."
 

Smith and I looked at each other in blank perplexity.

"That's a remarkable song," I said at last.

"Very," said Smith. We halted. The dynamo droned on like a giant bee.

Raoul continued to sing as he moved around in the bottling house, and the words he sang came to us quite plainly:

 
"Crack-brain-cripple-arm
Sacking city, town and farm!
You, your children and your friends,
All will come to rotten ends!"
 

"Smith," said I, "who on earth do you suppose he means by 'Crack-brain-cripple-arm'?"

"Surely," mused Smith, "he could not be referring to the All-highest of Hunland… Could he?"

"Impossible," said I. We went into the bottling house. And the song of Raoul ceased.

It struck me, as he turned and came toward us with his frank, quick smile and his gay and slightly jaunty bearing, that he had about him something of that nameless allure of a soldier of France.

"But of course you are Swiss," I said to him with a trace of a grin twitching at my lips.

"Of course, Monsieur," he replied innocently.

"Certainly… And, how about that machinery, Raoul?"

"It functions, Monsieur. A little rust – nothing serious. The torrent from the Bec de l'Empereur runs the dynamo; the spring flows full. Listen!"

We listened. Through the purring of the dynamo the bubbling melody of the famous mineral spring was perfectly audible.

"How many bottles have we?" I asked.

"In the unopened cases a hundred thousand. In odd lots, quart size, twenty thousand more."

"Corks? Boxes?"

"Plenty."

"Labels? Straw?"

"Bales, Monsieur."

"And all the machinery works?"

For answer he picked up a quart bottle and placed it in a porcelain cylinder. Then he threw a switch; the bottle was filled automatically, corked, labeled, sheathed in straw and deposited in a straw-lined box.

"Fine!" I said. "When you have a few moments to spare from the farm you can fill a few dozen cases. And you, too, Smith, when time hangs heavy on your hands, it might amuse you to drop in and start bottling spring water for me – instead of rearranging your bureau drawers."

The suggestion did not seem to attract him. He said he'd enjoy doing it but that he did not comprehend machinery.

I smiled at him and made up my mind that he'd not spend his spare time in Clelia's neighborhood.

"Raoul," said I, "that was an interesting song you were singing when we came in."

"What song, Monsieur?"

"The one about 'Crack-brain-cripple-arm.'"

He gazed at me so stupidly that I hesitated.

"I thought I heard you humming a song," said I.

"Maybe it was the dynamo, Monsieur."

"Maybe," I said gravely.

Smith and I walked out and across toward the cow-stables.

There was nothing to see there except chickens; the little brown Swiss cattle being in pasture on the Bec de l'Empereur.

"If time hangs heavy with you, Smith," I ventured, "why not drive the cows home and milk them in the evenings?"

He told me, profanely, that he had plenty to do to amuse himself.

"What, for example, did he tell you?"

"Write letters," he said, – "for example."

"To friends in dear old Norway, I suppose," said I flippantly.

"To whomever I darn well please," he rejoined drily.

That, of course, precluded further playful inquiry. Baffled, I walked on beside him. But I sullenly decided to stick to him until Clelia had done the chamber-work and had safely retired to regions below stairs.

Several times he remarked he'd forgotten something and ought to go to his rooms to look for the missing objects. I pretended not to hear him and he hadn't the effrontery to attempt it.

The words of Raoul's song kept running in my mind.

 
"Crack-brain-cripple-arm
You have done a heap of harm – "
 

And I found myself humming the catchy air as I strolled over my domain with my unwilling companion.

"I like that song," I remarked.

"Of course you would," he said.

"Why?"

"Because you're so bally neutral," he replied ironically.

"I am neutral. All Chileans are. I'm neutral because my country is."

"You're neutral as hell," he retorted with a shrug – "you camouflaged Yankee."

"If I weren't neutral," said I, "I'd not be afraid of admitting it to a New York Viking."

That put him out on first. I enjoyed his silence for a while, then I said: "Come on, old top, sing us some more Norse sagas about 'My girl's a corker.'"

"Can it!" retorted that typical product of Christiania.

So with quip and retort and persiflage veiled and more or less merry, we strolled about in the beautiful early summer weather.

"Why the devil don't you find Thusis and take another lesson in angling?" he suggested.

"Because, dear friend, Thusis hitched up our horse and went to Zurich this morning."

"What? When?"

"Ere the earliest dicky-bird had caroled – ere Aurora had wiped night's messy cobwebs from the skies with rosy fingers."

"What did she go for? – that is, what did she say she was going for?"

"To purchase various household necessaries. Why?"

"She's a funny girl," he remarked evasively.

"Yes?"

"Rather."

"In what humorous particular do you hand it so generously to Thusis?" I inquired.

"Oh, you know well enough she's odd. You can't explain her. She's no peasant, and you know it. She's not Swiss, either. I don't know what she is. I don't know quite what she's doing here. Sometimes she reminds me of a runaway school girl: sometimes of the humorless, pep-less prude who usually figures as heroine in a best seller. And sometimes she acts like a vixen! … I didn't tell you," he added, "but I was amiable enough to try to kiss her that first evening. I don't know where you were – but you can take it from me, O'Ryan, I thought I'd caught hold of the original vestal virgin and that my hour had come for the lions!"

"You beast," said I, not recollecting my own behavior in the cellar. "What did she say?"

"She didn't say anything. She merely looked it. I've been horribly afraid she'd tell her sister," he added naïvely.

"Smith," I said, laying an earnest hand on his arm, "you mustn't frivol with my household. I won't stand for it. I admit that my household is an unusual one. Frankly, I have no more idea than you have that Thusis and Clelia are real servants, or why they choose to take service here with me. Probably they're political agents. I don't care. But you and I mustn't interfere with them, first, because it disorganizes my ménage; second, because I believe they're really nice girls."

"I think so, too," he said.

"Well, then, if they are, we don't want to forget it. And also we must remember that probably they are political agents of some country now engaged in this war, and it won't do for us to become involved."

"How involved?"

"Well, suppose I took Thusis more or less seriously?"

"Do you?"

"I didn't say I did. I said suppose I do? Who is she? With all her dainty personality and undoubted marks of birth and breeding – with the irrefutable evidence of manner and speech and presence – with all these ear-marks by which both she and Clelia seem plainly labeled —who is Thusis?"

"I don't know," he said soberly.

"Nor I. And yet it is apparent that she has taken no pains to play the part of a peasant or of a servant for our benefit. Evidently she doesn't care – for I venture to believe she's a good actress in addition to the rest of her ungodly cleverness.

"But she seems to think it immaterial as to whether or not you and I wonder who she may be. Mentally, Thusis snaps her fingers at us, Smith. So does Clelia."

"Clelia is gentler – more girlish and immature," he said, "but she makes no bones about having been in better circumstances. She's sweet but she's no weakling. My curiosity amuses her and she pokes a lot of fun at me."

"Doesn't she tell you anything? Doesn't she give you any hint?"

"No, she doesn't. She's friendly – willing to stop dusting and exchange a little innocent banter with me… Do you know, O'Ryan, I never before saw such a pretty girl. She's only eighteen. Did you know it?"

"No, I didn't."

"And Thusis is twenty."

I thought deeply for a while, then:

"We'd better keep away from them except when business requires an interview," I concluded.

"Why," he pointed out in annoyance, "that leaves me out entirely."

"Of course. I shall not think of Thusis at all except on terms of business. That's the safe idea, Smith, business, – strictly business. It neutralizes everything; it's a wet blanket on folly; it paralyzes friskiness; it slays sentiment in its tracks. Become a business man. Engage in some useful occupation. Suppose, for example, I pay you a franc a week to feed my chickens."

"I've plenty to do, I tell you."

"Then do it, old top, and steer shy of that little blue-eyed parlor maid of mine."

He made no answer. We prowled about until nearly lunch-time. But the odd thing was that I had lost my appetite. It may have happened because I'd begun to worry a little about Thusis.

What the deuce had that girl been doing in Zurich all this while? She was too attractive to go about that seething city alone with market-cart and horse. Some fresh young officer —

"Smith?"

He looked up, mildly surprised at my vehemence.

"Where the devil do you suppose Thusis is?" I asked.

"In Zurich, isn't she?"

"Yes, but she's been gone a long time and she ought to be back."

"Probably," he said, "she's gallivanting with some handsome young fellow along the Lake promenade. Possibly she's lunching at the Baur-au-Lac with some fascinating lieutenant. Or maybe they've strolled over to the Café de la Terrasse or to Rupps; or," he went on as though interested in his irritating speculations, "it may be that Thusis has gone out in a motor launch with some sprightly cavalier; or she may be at the Tonhalle, or at Belvoir Park."

"No doubt," said I, exasperated. "You needn't speculate further."

"Business over, why shouldn't Thusis kick up her pretty heels a bit?" he inquired.

"Because Thusis isn't that sort."

"How do you know that she isn't that sort?"

I didn't, and his question made me the madder.

"Luncheon ought to be ready," he reminded me presently. I could actually hear the grin in his voice.

"All right," said I. "I'm hungry." Which was a lie. Then, as we turned toward the house, Thusis drove into the yard.