“You know Miss Pyce, of course,” Louisiana said. “Spell it with a _y_, please! We ran bump into each other in Piccadill last week. Cissie had engaged a deck stateroom all to herself, little swell, and that’s how I could get back on this boat.”
“But why did you come in such a hurry?” Brainard asked, when Miss Pyce was diverted to the inspection of her trunks. “I thought you were to stay over until the fall.”
Louisiana looked softly up out of her gray eyes. “But you see Cissie told me all about it!”
“That your mine had gone dry, or something, and the theater had to close, and you were in a hole generally.”
“But that wouldn’t have made any difference about you—at least at present. I told Farson not to write you of our troubles.”
“He didn’t. If it hadn’t been for Cissie, I shouldn’t have known a thing, though she said it was all in the papers. But I never read the papers over there.”
“She couldn’t, you know, if she had something nasty about the People’s to tell. But ain’t you the least bit glad to see me, after all my hustle to get here as quick as I could?”
“Naturally I couldn’t stay over there, batting around, and you folks in trouble—just couldn’t have swallowed a mouthful of food!”
“Thank you! That’s the nicest thing I have heard for many a day.”
“What?” Brainard asked jokingly. “Discover the real heir to the property?”
Miss Delacourt looked puzzled by this reference to his predicament. Evidently Miss Pyce’s information had been only of the most general character. The details of the threatened suit had not been considered of sufficient importance by the news agencies to cable to Europe.
“I can do something,” the girl said, drawing herself up haughtily. “I’m no stage-struck kid now. I’m going to act.”
“There _is_ something you can do for me—for us,” Brainard hastened to say, remembering his chief excuse for meeting her at the dock. “I want you to come up to my house for breakfast right away, and hear what it is. Bring Miss Pyce, too, if she will come.”
“Oh, she’ll come! Cissie carries around a trunkful of floppy airs, but she’s a right good sort. I’m going to stay with her until I strike a job. She’s half promised to get me something in _The Star of the Seven Seas_—kitchen wench, I fancy. Cissie isn’t giving much away.”