|AT about two o'clock in the afternoon on a Saturday in early September Sue Wilde opened a letter from the Worm.
Before dropping on the stiff walnut chair Sue had closed the door; ruffled by the feeling that it must be closed, conscious even of guilt. For it was a tenet of Aunt Matilda's, as of Mrs. Wilde's, that a woman should not sit down before mid-afternoon, and not then on Mondays, Wednesdays or Saturdays. And here her bed was not yet made.
“Dear Sue (so the letter ran)--Herewith my check for the September rent. Sorry to be late. I forgot it.”
The letter sank to her lap. Pictures rose--memories. She saw the half-furnished little apartment on Tenth Street, in the heart of the old Village where she had spent the two busiest, most disturbing, yet--yes, happiest years of her life.
“There's a little news, some of which I can't tell you. Not until I know--which may be by the time this reaches you. In that case, if the news is anywhere near what I'm fool enough, every other minute, to hope, I shall doubtless be rushing post haste to see you and tell you how it all came about. I may reach you in person before this letter does. At present it is a new Treasure Island, a wildly adventurous comedy of life, with me for the hero--or the villain. That's what I'm waiting to be told. But it's rather miraculous.”
It was like Henry Bates to write mysteriously. He was excited; or he wouldn't be threatening to come out. It had been fine of him to keep from coming out. He hadn't forced her to ask it of him. She knew he wanted to. Now, at the thought that he almost certainly was coming, her pulse quickened.
There was a sound in the hall, a cautious turning of the door-knob.
Flushing, all nerves and self-consciousness, she leaped up, thrust the letter behind her, moved toward the bed that had not yet been made.
The shyly smiling face of a nine-year-old girl appeared.
“Come along and shut the door after you.”
The children made for the closet where hung certain dancing costumes that had before this proved to hold a fascination bordering on the realm of magic. Sue resumed her letter.
“Zanin is part of the news, Sue. He seems to have hit on prosperity. There are whispers that the great Silverstone has taken him up in earnest, sees in him the making of a big screen director. Z. himself told me the other night at the Parisian that he is going to put on a film production that will make _The Dawn of an Empire_ and his own (and your) Nature look like the early efforts of an amateur.