The Essential Booth Tarkington Collection. Booth Tarkington

history of the impetuous sailor's enthrallment;--a resume predicted three hours earlier by a gleeful whisper hissed across the maritime shoulder as the sisters swung near each other during a waltz: "_proposed_!"

      "I've always heard they're horribly inconstant," she said, regretfully. "But, oh, Laura, wasn't he beautiful to look at! Do you think he's more beautiful than Val? No--don't tell me if you do. I don't want to hear it! Val was so provoking: he didn't seem to mind it at all. He's nothing but a big brute sometimes: he wouldn't even admit that he minded, when I asked him. I was idiot enough to ask; I couldn't help it; he was so tantalizing and exasperating--laughing at me. I never knew anybody like him; he's so sure of himself and he can be so cold. Sometimes I wonder if he really cares about anything, deep down in his heart--anything except himself. He seems so selfish: there are times when he almost makes me hate him; but just when I get to thinking I do, I find I don't--he's so deliciously strong, and there's such a _big_ luxury in being understood: I always feel he _knows_ me clear to the bone, somehow! But, oh," she sighed regretfully, "doesn't a uniform become a man? They ought to all wear 'em. It would look silly on such a little goat as that Wade Trumble, though: nothing could make him look like a whole man. Did you see him glaring at me? Beast! I was going to be so nice and kittenish and do all my prettiest tricks for him, to help Val with his oil company. Val thinks Wade would come in yet, if I'D only get him in the mood to have another talk with Val about it; but the spiteful little rat wouldn't come near me. I believe that was one of the reasons Val laughed at me and pretended not to mind my getting proposed to. He _must_ have minded; he couldn't have helped minding it, really. That's his way; he's so _mean_--he won't show things. He knows _me_. I can't keep anything from him; he reads _me_ like a signboard; and then about himself he keeps me guessing, and I can't tell when I've guessed right. Ray Vilas behaved disgustingly, of course; he was horrid and awful. I might have expected it. I suppose Richard was wailing _his_ tiresome sorrows on your poor shoulder----"

      "No," said Laura. "He was very cheerful. He seemed glad you were having a good time."

      "He didn't look particularly cheerful at me. I never saw so slow a man: I wonder when he's going to find out about that pendant. Val would have seen it the instant I put it on. And, oh, Laura! isn't George Wattling funny? He's just _soft_! He's good-looking though," she continued pensively, adding, "I promised to motor out to the Country Club with him to-morrow for tea."

      "Oh, Cora," protested Laura, "no! Please don't!"

      "I've promised; so I'll have to, now." Cora laughed. "It'll do Mary Kane good. Oh, I'm not going to bother much with _him_--he makes me tired. I never saw anything so complacent as that girl when she came in to-night, as if her little Georgie was the greatest capture the world had ever seen. . . ."

      She chattered on. Laura, passive, listened with a thoughtful expression, somewhat preoccupied. The talker yawned at last.

      "It must be after three," she said, listlessly, having gone over her evening so often that the colours were beginning to fade. She yawned again. "Laura," she remarked absently, "I don't see how you can sleep in this bed; it sags so."

      "I've never noticed it," said her sister. "It's a very comfortable old bed."

      Cora went to her to be unfastened, reverting to the lieutenant during the operation, and kissing the tire-woman warmly at its conclusion. "You're always so sweet to me, Laura," she said affectionately. "I don't know how you manage it. You're so good"--she laughed--"sometimes I wonder how you stand me. If I were you, I'm positive I couldn't stand me at all!" Another kiss and a hearty embrace, and she picked up her wrap and skurried silently through the hall to her own room.

      It was very late, but Laura wrote for almost an hour in her book (which was undisturbed) before she felt drowsy. Then she extinguished the lamp, put the book away and got into bed.

      It was almost as if she had attempted to lie upon the empty air: the mattress sagged under her weight as if it had been a hammock; and something tore with a ripping sound. There was a crash, and a choked yell from a muffled voice somewhere, as the bed gave way. For an instant, Laura fought wildly in an entanglement of what she insufficiently perceived to be springs, slats and bedclothes with something alive squirming underneath. She cleared herself and sprang free, screaming, but even in her fright she remembered her father and clapped her hand over her mouth that she might keep from screaming again. She dove at the door, opened it, and fled through the hall to Cora's room, still holding her hand over her mouth.

      "Cora! Oh, Cora!" she panted, and flung herself upon her sister's bed.

      Cora was up instantly; and had lit the gas in a trice. "There's a burglar!" Laura contrived to gasp. "In my room! Under the bed!"

      "What!"

      "I fell on him! Something's the matter with the bed. It broke. I fell on him!"

      Cora stared at her wide-eyed. "Why, it can't be. Think how long I was in there. Your bed broke, and you just thought there was some one there. You imagined it."

      "No, no, no!" wailed Laura. "I _heard_ him: he gave a kind of dreadful grunt."

      "Are you sure?"

      "_Sure_? He wriggled--oh! I could _feel_ him!"

      Cora seized a box of matches again. "I'm going to find out." "Oh, no, no!" protested Laura, cowering.

      "Yes, I am. If there's a burglar in the house I'm going to find him!"

      "We mustn't wake papa."

      "No, nor mamma either. You stay here if you want to----"

      "Let's call Hedrick," suggested the pallid Laura; "or put our heads out of the window and scream for----"

      Cora laughed; she was not in the least frightened. "That wouldn't wake papa, of course! If we had a telephone I'd send for the police; but we haven't. I'm going to see if there's any one there. A burglar's a man, I guess, and I can't imagine myself being afraid of any _man_!"

      Laura clung to her, but Cora shook her off and went through the hall undaunted, Laura faltering behind her. Cora lighted matches with a perfectly steady hand; she hesitated on the threshold of Laura's room no more than a moment, then lit the lamp.

      Laura stifled a shriek at sight of the bed. "Look, look!" she gasped.

      "There's no one under it now, that's certain," said Cora, and boldly lifted a corner of it. "Why, it's been cut all to pieces from underneath! You're right; there was some one here. It's practically dismembered. Don't you remember my telling you how it sagged? And I was only sitting on the edge of it! The slats have all been moved out of place, and as for the mattress, it's just a mess of springs and that stuffing stuff. He must have thought the silver was hidden there."

      "Oh, oh, oh!" moaned Laura. "He _wriggled_----ugh!"

      Cora picked up the lamp. "Well, we've got to go over the house----"

      "No, no!"

      "Hush! I'll go alone then."

      "You _can't_."

      "I will, though!"

      The two girls had changed places in this emergency. In her fright Laura was dependent, clinging: actual contact with the intruder had unnerved her. It took all her will to accompany her sister upon the tour of inspection, and throughout she cowered behind the dauntless Cora. It was the first time in their lives that their positions had been reversed. From the days of Cora's babyhood, Laura had formed the habit of petting and shielding the little sister, but now that the possibility became imminent of confronting an unknown and dangerous man, Laura was so shaken that, overcome by fear, she let Cora go first. Cora had not boasted in vain of her bravery; in truth, she was not afraid of any man.

      They found the fastenings of the doors secure and likewise those of all the windows, until they came to the kitchen. There, the cook had left a window up, which plausibly explained the marauder's mode of ingress. Then, at Cora's