As if in response to his cue, "my son Godfrey" appeared, looking extremely handsome in his evening clothes, and rather absurdly pleased to find his mother and me so deep in talk that we did not hear him approach.
"Friends already, aren't you?" was his comment on the effective tableau we made, and as we descended in the elevator to the hotel dining-room he explained again how glad he was to have his mother and sister home after two years of absence, and to bring us together at last.
The little dinner moved on charmingly, but before an hour had passed I realized that my host and hostess were under some special strain. Mrs. Morris wore a nervous, expectant look--the look of one who is listening for a bell, or a step long overdue. Several times I saw Godfrey glance toward the door, and once I caught a swift look that passed between him and his mother--a look charged with anxiety. Both obviously tried to throw off their care, whatever it was, and to a degree they succeeded. I was sending my spoon into the deep heart of a raspberry-ice when a servant leaned over the back of my chair and confidentially addressed me.
"Beg pardon, miss," he murmured, deprecatingly. "But if it's Miss Iverson, a person wants Miss Iverson on the wire."
I flushed and hesitated, glancing at Mrs. Morris.
"Party says it's urgent, miss," prompted the servant.
I apologized to my hostess, and rose. There seemed no other course open to me. Mrs. Morris looked mildly amused; her son looked thoughtful as he, too, rose and accompanied me across the dining-room to the door, returning then to the table, as I insisted that he must. In the telephone-booth the voice of Grace Morris came to me over the wire, not languid now, but quick and imperative.
"Miss Iverson?" she called. "Is that you at last? Thank Heaven! I thought you were never coming. Are mother and Godfrey still in the dining-room? Good! Will you do me a favor? It's a big one--vital."
I expressed my willingness to do Miss Morris a vital favor.
"Thank you," she said. "Then please do exactly what I tell you. Go to the hotel desk and ask the clerk for the key to my suite. I left it with him. Then go up to my bedroom. On my dressing-table you'll find an open letter I dropped there--or perhaps it's on the floor. Conceal it in your bosom, the way they do in books, and keep it for me till we meet."