Her day-dreaming did not last long, however. It was abruptly dispelled, as such moods generally are. The sound of hurrying feet brought a quick look that was one almost of anxiety into her usually confident eyes. With one comprehensive movement she scrambled her books and papers together and heaped them into the still open drawer. Then she gathered up the money, and flung it in after the other things.
As the door burst open and Helen ran into the room, her eyes bright with excitement, and her breathing hurried and short from her run, Kate was in the act of locking the drawer.
Helen halted as she came abreast of the table, and her dancing eyes challenged her sister.
"At your Bluebeard's chamber again, Kate?" she cried, in mock reproval. Then she raised a warning finger. "One of these days--mind, one of these days, I surely will have a duplicate key made and get a peek into that drawer, which you never open in my presence. I believe you're carrying on an intrigue with some man. Maybe it's full of letters from--Dirty O'Brien."
"Dirty O'Brien? Well, he's all sorts of a sport anyway, and I like 'sports,'" she said lightly.
"'Sports'? Why, yes, there are plenty of 'sports'--of a kind--in this place. I'll have to see if I can find one who can make skeleton keys. I'd surely say that sort of 'sport' should be going round the village all right, all right."
She nodded her threat at her sister, who was in no way disconcerted. She only laughed.
"What's brought you back on the run?" she inquired.
"I'd say the only thing that could fix you that way was a--man."
"Right. Right in once. A man, Kate, not a mouse," Helen declared, "although I allow they're both motive forces calculated to set me running. The only thing is, one attracts, and the other repels. This is distinctly a matter of attraction."
"Who's the man?" demanded the practical Kate, with a look of real interest in her handsome eyes.
"Why, Big Brother Bill, of course, the man I promised you all I'd marry."
Helen suddenly dashed at her sister and caught her by the arm in pretended excitement.
"I've seen him, Kate, seen him!" she cried. "And--and he raised his hat to me. He's big--ever so big, and he's got the loveliest, most foolish blue eyes I've ever seen. That's how I knew him. Say, and when I saw him with Inspector Fyles, I remembered what Charlie said about him having no sense, and I had to laugh, and I think he thought I was grinning at him, and that's why he raised his hat to me. It seemed so comical--looked just as if he was being brought in charge of a policeman for fear he'd lose himself, and would never find himself again. He's surely a real live man, and I've fallen in love with him right away, and, if you don't find something to send me up to see Charlie about right away, I'll--I'll go crazy--or--or faint, or do something equally foolish."