"The--er--means of getting you out?"

"Is there anything more important?"

"Ah--decidedly not," Anthony said wearily. "Several times, I think, we've attempted a council of war, and we may as well try it again. There will be no interruptions this time, I think, and if we all put our minds to it----"

That was all. As on several other similar occasion, he halted because of sounds from the doorway. It seemed to Anthony, indeed, that he had heard Wilkins muttering at the telephone a moment ago, too; and now the faithful one was at the door and working over the latch.

Mary's ears were preternaturally keen, too; Mary had acquired a way of standing erect and poising every time sounds came from that door. She did it now, remaining on tiptoe until the oddest little giggle brought Anthony and Johnson Boller to their feet also.

"That's a woman's voice!" Mary whispered.

And she looked about wildly, and, since there was no hope of escape unseen by the corridor, her eyes fell upon the open door of Johnson Boller's room. Mary, with a bound that would have done credit to a young deer, was across the room, and the door clicked behind her just as Wilkins, smiling in a perturbed and mystified way, appeared to announce:

"A lady, sir, who----"

Then the lady had pa.s.sed him, moving with a speed almost equal to Mary's own--a lovely lady, indeed, with great, flashing black eyes and black hair--a lady all life and spirit, her face suffused just now with a great joy. Wilkins, perceiving that neither gentleman protested after gazing at her for one second, backed away to regions of his own, and the spell on Johnson Boller broke and his soul found vent in one great, glad cry of:

"Bee!"

"Pudgy-wudgy!" cried the lady, and flew directly into Johnson Boller's arms!

Anthony Fry steadied himself, mentally and physically, and the little smile that came to his lips was more than half sneer--because Johnson Boller and his lovely wife were hugging each other and babbling senselessly, and the best that Anthony could make of it at first was something like:

"And was it lonely? Oh, Pudgy-wudgy, was it lonely?"

Whereat Johnson Boller burbled:

"Lonely, sugar-plum? Lonely, sweetie? Oh, Beetie-girl, if Pudgy-wudgy could tell you how lonely----"

Here they kissed again, three times, four times, five times!

"h.e.l.l!" said Anthony Fry.

"And did it come back?" the imbecile that had been Johnson Boller gurgled.

The dark, exquisite head burrowed deep on Boller's shoulder.

"Oh, Pudgy!" a m.u.f.fled voice protested, almost tearfully. "I couldn't do it! I thought I could, but I couldn't, sweetest!"

"And so it came back to its Pudgy-wudgy!" Johnson Boller oozed ecstatically. "So it turned around and came back to its Pudgy!"

Mrs. Boller regarded him solemnly, holding him off for a moment.

"At some awful, awful place north of Albany," she said. "I couldn't go any farther and I--I was going to wire you to come for me, Pudgy! And then I thought I'd stay at their terrible hotel and come down and surprise you, and you weren't home and they said you'd come here!"

"Yes!" Johnson Boller agreed.

"How could you leave our home, Pudgy-wudgy?" his darling asked reprovingly.

"If I had stayed there another hour without my little chicky-biddy, I'd have shot myself!" said Pudgy-wudgy. "Ask Anthony!" And here he looked at Anthony and demanded: "Ain't we silly? Like a couple of kids!"

"You certainly are!" Anthony Fry rasped.

"You don't have to screw your face all up when you say it!" Mr. Boller informed him, disengaging himself.

Beatrice laughed charmingly.

"You'll overlook it, Mr. Fry?" said she. "We've never been separated before in all the----"

"Six months!" beamed Johnson Boller.

"--that we've been married!" finished his wife, squeezing his hand.

Followed a pause. Anthony had nothing whatever to say; after witnessing an exhibition like that he never had anything to say for an hour or more that a lady could hear. He stood, a cold, stately, disgusted figure, surging internally, thanking every star in the firmament that he had never laid himself open to a situation of that kind--and after a time the inimical radiations from him reached Beatrice, for she laughed uneasily.

"May I--may I fix my hair?" she asked. "And then we'll go home, Pudgy?"

"Yes, my love," purred Johnson Boller.

"Which is your room, pigeon-boy?" his bride asked.

So far as concerned Johnson Boller, Mary had been wafted out of this world; all aglow with witless happiness, he pointed at the door as he said:

"That one, Beetie-chicken."

Beatrice turned--and ten thousand volts shot through Anthony and caused his hair to stand on end. His laugh, coming simultaneously, was a loud, weird thing, splitting the still air.

"Your bedroom, Johnson!" he cried. "She means your _bedroom_!"

"Well--of course?" Beatrice said wonderingly.

"Well, that's down at the end of the corridor, dear madam," Anthony smiled wildly, and went so far as to stay her by laying hands on her arm. "Right down there--see? The open door. That's Johnson's room!"

Beatrice, distinctly startled, glanced at him and nodded and left.

Anthony, drawing the first real breath in a full minute, glared at his friend in silence; but the morning's dread situation had slid from Johnson Boller's shoulders as a drop of water from a duck's back. For a second or two he had been slightly jarred at the magnitude of the break he had made--but that was all over now.

"My mistake, old scout," he chuckled softly. "You saved the day--what are you glowering about?"

"Clod!" gasped Anthony.

"Clod your necktie!" Johnson Boller said airily. "Well, did you ever see the like of it? Did you ever see anything like the little squeezicks, Anthony! She's back, bless her little heart! She couldn't stand it."

"Umph!" said his host.

"And so I'm let out of it!" Mr. Boller chuckled on. "We'll just scoot along to the little dove-cote, old vinegar-face, and see how she looks after all this time. I can get my things later on. Well--I'm sorry to leave you with the problem on your hands, you know."

"Don't let it disturb you!" Anthony snapped.