Isidora dreaded, yet longed, to see the messenger return, and at sight of the slim figure in blue bobbing past the big window she started so violently as to cover the floor with an avalanche of waiters' checks which had littered her father's desk.
The youth entered the restaurant and went straight to the table where "Mr. Gordon" still sat. Isidora could not hear a word of the conversation which ensued, but from under her eyelashes she contrived to see, without seeming to see, how the messenger shook his head in answer to questions, and how Mr. Gordon's face grew ever more blank until it hardened into an expression of hopelessness. She was sure that the boy had brought neither letter nor telegram, and that something had gone very wrong indeed with her mysterious guest's calculations.
An inspiration prompted her hastily to beckon Bill, who was earning the continued hospitality of the restaurant by trotting in with clean plates from the kitchen and trotting back with dirty ones.
"Here, take this, and pay the messenger," she whispered. "I guess your friend's had a disappointment."
Bill obeyed, but did not at once come back. When the youth had been paid, and had shot away up the street as if through a pneumatic tube, Bill lingered in consultation with the pale young man at the table.
"Something's up," Isidora said to herself, in an agony of curiosity. But what the "something" was, she could not find out till breakfast was over, and the room clear of customers.
It was by this time after nine, a late hour at Alexander the Great's restaurant, which the regular clients were deserting now for business; but others might drop in for a piece of pie at any moment, so Isidora caught at a propitiously quiet instant as she would have flown at a moving electric tram.
"The cable I expected hasn't arrived," explained P. Gordon. "It's all right, of course, when I come to think of it, and I'm not really worried, for I haven't paid enough attention to the difference of time between London and New York. I must send again later in the day, when there will be letters, too, perhaps, and people's visiting-cards. Meanwhile----"
"Meanwhile, stay where you are, and make yourself at home," cut in Isidora, hospitably. Nevertheless, she was anxious when she thought of her father, and the inevitable moment of his coming downstairs, heavy-footed with illness, and "cross as a bear with a sore head." Pa would want to have the beautiful young man in evening clothes satisfactorily explained, and it was borne in upon the girl that he would be rather difficult to explain. Non-paying people and things were always difficult to explain to Alexander, especially when he was under the weather. But--there was one way out of the scrape, and Isidora snatched at it suddenly with a leap of the heart. All might be well should she prevail upon Mr. Gordon to accept another loan from her--if he liked to call it a loan!