CHAPTER XI

AS SEEN FROM THE STAIRWAY

"Where in the world have you been?" Lucile exclaimed, pouncing upon Cordie as soon as she came in sight. "Rennie's been worrying her poor old head off about you, and Miss Mones, who's in charge of the checking girls, is furious."

"Oh," Cordie drawled, "I was out to lunch. Then I took a spin down the park on my favorite steed. It's a won-der-ful day outside."

"You'll have a lot of time to spend outside," scolded Lucile, "if you don't get right back to your stand."

A moment later, having somehow made her peace with Miss Mones, Cordie was back at her task, rustling paper and snipping cord.

Late that afternoon Lucile was sent to the twelfth floor storeroom to look up a special order. She enjoyed these trips to the upper realms. This vast storeroom was like a new world to her. As she walked down long, narrow, silent aisles, on either side of which were wired in compartments piled high with every conceivable form of merchandise: rugs, piano lamps, dolls, dishes, couches, clothes-pins, and who knows what others, she could not help feeling that she was in the store house of the world, that she was queen of this little ward and that there remained only for her to say the word and a house would be handsomely furnished, a beautiful bride outfitted with a trousseau, or a Christmas tree decorated for a score of happy children. Yes, these aisles held a charm and fascination all their own. She liked the silence of the place, too. After the hours of listening to the constant babble of voices, the murmur of shoppers, the call of clerks, the answers of floormen, this place seemed the heart of silent woods at night.

Captivated by such thoughts as these, and having located the missing books and started them on their journey down the elevator, she decided to walk down the nine flights to her own floor.

Here, too, as she skipped lightly down from floor to floor, she caught little intimate glimpses of the various lives that were being lived in this little world of which she was for a time a part. Here a score of printing presses and box making machines were cutting, shaping and printing containers for all manner of holiday goods. The constant rush of wheels, the press and thump of things, the wrinkles on the brows of operators, all told at what a feverish heat the work was being pushed forward.

One floor lower down the same feverish pace was being set. Here nimble fingers dipped and packed chocolate bon-bons, while from the right and left of them came the rattle and thump of drums polishing jelly beans and moulding gum drops at the rate of ten thousand a minute.

Ah yes, there was the Christmas rush for you. But one floor lower down there was quiet and composure such as one might hope to find in a meadow where a single artist, with easel set, sketches a landscape. It was not unlike that either, for the two-score of persons engaged here were sketching, too. The sketches they made with pen and ink and water-colors were not unattractive. Drawings of house interiors they were; here the heavily furnished office of some money king, and there the light and airy boudoir of one of society's queens; here the modest compartment of a young architect who, though of only average means, enjoyed having things done right, and there the many roomed mansion of a steel magnate. These sketches were made and then shown to the prospective customer. The customer offered suggestions, made slight changes, then nodded, wrote a check, and a sale amounting to thousands of dollars was completed.

"That must be fascinating work," Lucile whispered to herself as an artistic looking young woman showed a finished sketch to a customer. "I think I'd like that. I believe----"

With a sudden shock her thoughts were cut short. Two persons had entered the glassed-in compartment--a woman of thirty and a girl in her late teens. And of all persons!

"The Mystery Lady and Cordie! It can't be," she breathed, "and yet it is!"

It was, too. None other. What was stranger still, they appeared to have business here. At sight of them one of the artists arose and lifting a drawing which had been standing face to the wall, held it out for their inspection.

Cordie clasped her hands in very evident ecstasy of delight, and, if Lucile read her lips aright, she exclaimed:

"How perfectly wonderful!"

The expression on the Mystery Lady's face said plainer than words, "I hoped you'd like it."

The sketch, Lucile could see plainly enough from where she stood, was a girl's room. There was a bed with draperies, a study table of slender-legged mahogany, a dresser, one great comfortable chair surprisingly like Lucile's own, some simpler chairs of exquisite design. These furnishings, and such others as only a girl would love, were done in the gay tints that appeal to the springtime of youth.

"Cordie?" Lucile stared incredulously. "A simple country girl, what can she know about such things? That room--why those furnishings would cost hundreds of dollars. It's absurd, impossible; and yet there they are--she and the Mystery Lady."

The Mystery Lady! At thought of her, Lucile was seized with an almost uncontrollable desire to rush down there and demand the meaning of that lady's many strange doings. But something held her back. So Cordie was acquainted with the Mystery Lady! Here was something strange. Indeed, Lucile was beginning to wonder a great deal about Cordie.

"She has her secrets, little Cordie!" exclaimed Lucile. "Who would have thought it?"

Perhaps it is not strange that Lucile did not feel warranted in breaking in upon those secrets. So there she stood, irresolute, until the two of them had left the room and lost themselves in the throngs that crowded every aisle of this great mart of trade.

"Now," Lucile sighed, "I shan't ever feel quite the same about Cordie. I suppose, though, she has a right to her secrets. What could she possibly know about interior decorating and furnishing? Perhaps more than I would guess. But a country girl? What does she know about the Mystery Lady? Little, or much? Have they known each other long? I--I'll ask her. No--n-o-o, I guess I won't. I wasn't supposed to see. It was too much like spying. No," this decisively, "I'll just have to let things work themselves out. And if they don't work out to something like a revelation, then I'll know they haven't, that's all. More than half the mysteries of the world are never unravelled at all."

After this bit of reasoning, she hastened on down the remaining flights of stairs to her work.

"Where's Cordie?" she asked of Laurie.

"Out on a shopping pass. Swell looking dame came in and called for her." There was a knowing grin on Laurie's face as he said this, but Lucile, who had turned to her work, did not notice it.

Cordie returned a few moments later, but not one word did she let fall regarding her shopping mission.