“No,” said Ruth, weakly.  “Nobody must know ...  He—­mustn’t know.”

“Fiddlesticks!” “Do you know? ...  He’s done something—­but it wasn’t for me ...  I didn’t have anything to do with it ...  Do you know what he’s done?”

“I know,” said Hilda.  “It was splendid.  Dad’s all worked up over it, but I think it is splendid just the same.”  “Splendid,” said Ruth, slowly, thoughtfully—­“splendid ...  Yes, that’s it—­splendid.”  She seemed childishly pleased to discover the word, and repeated it again and again.

Presently she turned her eyes up to Hilda’s face, lifted a white, blue-veined, almost transparent hand, and touched Hilda’s face.  “I”—­ she seemed to have difficulty to find a word, but she smiled like a tiny little girl—­“I—­like you,” she said, triumphantly.  “I’m—­sorry you came—­but I—­like you.”

“Yes, dear,” said Hilda.  “You’d better like me.”

“But,” said Ruth, evidently striving to express a differentiation, “I—­love him.”

Hilda said nothing; there was nothing she could say, but her eyes brimmed at the pitifulness of it.  She abhorred tears.

“I’m going now, dear,” she said.  “I’ll fix things for you and be back in no time to take you home with me. ...  So be all ready.”

“No...” said Ruth.

“Yes,” Hilda laughed.  “You’ll help, won’t you, Mrs. Moody?”

“Hain’t no way out of it, I calc’late,” said the woman.

“I won’t be half an hour, Ruth ...  Good-by.”

But Ruth had turned away her face and would not answer.

“Say,” said Mrs. Moody, in a fever of curiosity which could not be held in check after they had passed outside of Ruth’s room, “who is she, anyhow? ...  Somebody, I’ll perdict.  Hain’t she somebody?”

“She’s Mrs. Foote ...  Mrs. Bonbright Foote.”

“I swan to man! ...  And me settin’ there readin’ to her about him.  If it don’t beat all ...  Him with all them millions, and her without so much as a nest like them beasts and birds of the air, in Scripture.  I never expected nothin’ like this would ever happen to me ...”  Hilda saw that Mrs. Moody was glorifying God in her heart that this amazing adventure, this bit out of a romance, had come into her drab life.

“Is that there your auto?” Mrs. Moody asked, peering out with awe at the liveried chauffeur.

Hilda nodded.  “And who be you, if I might ask?” Mrs. Moody said.

“My name is Hilda Lightener, Mrs. Moody.”

“Not that automobile man’s daughter—­the one they call the automobile king?”

“They call dad lots of things,” said Hilda, with a sympathetic laugh.  She liked Mrs. Moody.  “I’ll be back directly,” she said, and left the good woman standing in an attitude suggestive of mental prostration, actually, literally, gasping at this marvel that had blossomed under her very eyes.

As Hilda’s car moved away she turned, picked up her skirts, and ran toward the kitchen.  The news was bursting out of her.  She was leaking it along the way as she sought the mercenary to pour it into her ears.