The official chaperon

A second more and the aisle was filled with sleepy passengers who strove to push past each other with the impatient rudeness which characterizes the average American traveler. T...

“YOU are, then, absolutely positive that Miss Langdon called up Mr. Barnard the last thing before leaving this room yesterday afternoon?” questioned Rear Admiral Lawrence, with...

MARJORIE LANGDON contemplated her small wardrobe as it lay spread out before her on the bed, and then gazed at the passbook open in her hand. She saw the slender balance remaini...

MARJORIE, on her way out to keep her appointment with Mrs. Calderon Fordyce, paused in the hall to examine the mail which Minerva, deeply engrossed in the arrival of Miss Rebeka...

“Of course it is, dear mother,” he replied, sitting down on the lounge beside her. “You can always trust Perkins to arrange the table decorations to the Queen’s taste. Why so an...

“THIS way, sir; your seats are in the upper gallery,” announced a cavalry corporal. “Right up here, miss,” and he assisted Janet up the first steps of the narrow stairway, then...

MINERVA glared at her image in the glass she was polishing with unusual diligence. “A cleanin’ an’ a cleanin’,” she exclaimed rebelliously. “Miss Rebekah don’t hardly ’low me ti...

“ALMOST the amount,” mused Marjorie folding the letter and placing it carefully away in the top drawer of her bureau. “The company will have to take it and wait for the remainde...

“Same old business, Joe?” questioned Pauline significantly, scanning his rumpled appearance with no kindly eye. “Really, father will be deeply interested to hear you are so engr...

CHICHESTER BARNARD slipped off his evening coat and put on his smoking-jacket, and pausing in front of his chiffonier, gazed hungrily at a photograph of Marjorie Langdon leaning...

LAWRENCE. On Monday, December 24, Margaret A., beloved wife of Stephen Lawrence, Rear Admiral, U. S. N., aged sixty-two years. Funeral from her late residence on Wednesday at tw...

EARLIER that same afternoon Janet had started for Madame Yvonett’s residence intending to join Marjorie there, but as she crossed Dupont Circle into Massachusetts Avenue, an aut...

“Oh, well, take the consequences then,” replied her daughter, undutifully. “Chichester Barnard warned me Joe spends most of his time with that trained nurse, Kathryn Allen; he s...

“My dear Kathryn, it was never on,” Barnard looked squarely at the pretty nurse facing him, a faint trace of distress visible in his polished manner. “When I called to see my au...

Pauline tells me Janet Fordyce and Chichester Barnard frequently take tea at the Brown Tea Pot. I don’t know why you asked me to find out, but, sweetheart, your word is law to y...

“Quite right; but I had no idea you were going out,” Calhoun-Cooper hesitated. “However, I will not keep you long. Can you tell me who are Joe’s associates in Washington?”

“Well, just a little snore,” hastily, noting her mother’s offended expression. “I wouldn’t have disturbed you, mumsie, dear, if I hadn’t thought Marjorie was here with you. I am...

TOM NICHOLS passed down the long line of the receiving party at the Charity Ball and paused near the north end of the New Willard ballroom and looked about him. The floor was th...

MARJORIE handed the menu back to the chef, gave him the completed marketing list, added a few instructions, and made her way to the boudoir. There was no buoyancy in her step, a...

“Mr. Fordyce, sir?” interrogatively, and Duncan nodded assent. “The Doctor is waiting for you, sir. Please step this way”--but before they reached the drawing-room, Paul Potter...

MADAME YVONETT, knitting industriously as she sat in the bow window of her small parlor, watched a smart victoria drive up to the curb and stop before her door. There was no one...

ON leaving Duncan sitting in his roadster before the apartment house, Marjorie had every intention of slipping into the Portland through the drug store. Once safely inside the b...

“I beg your pardon; your brother and Dr. Potter are with Mrs. Fordyce just now. Seeing so many together might overexcite her. Could you not come in a little later?”

“Good evening,” she said. “Janet, here are the truants. I think you are to take me out to dinner, Dr. Potter,” and the hand she placed on the physician’s arm was steady.

KATHRYN ALLEN, taking care that her starched white nurse’s uniform made no crinkling sound, bent over Mrs. Fordyce and listened to her regular breathing. Satisfied that her pati...

“That is not surprising or unusual,” answered Potter. “In cases of animal magnetism the subject is awake; has returned to what may be called her normal state, is able to reflect...