Mr. Sam came to the news stand, and he was so nervous he could hardly light a cigarette.

“I’ve had a message from one of the detectives,” he said.  “They’ve traced him to Salem, Ohio, but they lost him there.  If we can only hold on this evening—!  Look at that first-night audience!”

“Mr. Pierce is due in three minutes,” I told him.  “I hope you told him to kiss his sister.”

“Nothing of the sort,” he objected.  “Why should he kiss her?  Mrs. Van Alstyne is afraid of the whole thing:  she won’t stand for that.”

“I guess she could endure it,” I remarked dryly.

“It’s astonishing how much of that sort of thing a woman can bear.”

He looked at me and grinned.

“By gad,” he said, “I wouldn’t be as sophisticated as you are for a good deal.  Isn’t that the sleigh?”

Everybody had heard it.  The women sat up and craned forward to look at the door:  Mrs. Sam was sitting forward clutching the arms of her chair.  She was in white, having laid off her black for that evening, with a red rose pinned on her so Mr. Pierce would know her.  Miss Patty heard the sleigh-bells also, and she turned and came toward the door.  Her mouth was set hard, and she was twisting the ruby ring as she always did when she was nervous.  And at the same moment Mr. Sam and I both saw it; she was in white, too, and she had a red rose tucked in her belt!

Mr. Sam muttered something and rushed at her, but he was too late.  Just as he got to her the door opened and in came Mr. Pierce, with Mr. Sam’s fur coat turned up around his ears and Mr. Sam’s fur cap drawn well down on his head.  He stood for an instant blinking in the light, and Mrs. Van Alstyne got up nervously.  He never even saw her.  His eyes lighted on Miss Patty’s face and stayed there.  Mr. Sam was there, but what could he do?  Mr. Pierce walked over to Miss Patty, took her hand, said, “Hello there!” and kissed her.  It was awful.

Most women will do anything to save a scene, and that helped us, for she never turned a hair.  But when Mr. Sam got him by the arm and led him toward the stairs, she turned so that the old cats sitting around could not see her and her face was scarlet.  She went over to the wood fire—­our lobby is a sort of big room with chairs and tables and palms, and an open fire in winter—­and sat down.  I don’t think she knew herself whether she was most astonished or angry.

Mrs. Biggs gave a nasty little laugh.

“Your brother didn’t see you,” she said to Mrs. Van Alstyne.  “I dare say a sister doesn’t count much when a future princess is around!”

Mrs. Van Alstyne was still staring up the staircase, but she came to herself at that.  She had some grit in her, if she did look like a French doll.

“My brother and Miss Jennings are very old friends,” she remarked quietly.  I believe that was what she thought, too.  I don’t think she had seen the other red rose, and what was she to think but that Mr. Pierce had known Miss Jennings somewhere?  She was dazed, Mrs. Sam was.  But she carried off the situation anyhow, and gave us time to breathe.  We needed it.