Haney, who had never before perceived a tear on her face, was startled, and stood in puzzled pain looking down at her, while the tactful Lucius went about the unpacking of the trunks, confident that the shower would soon be over. "What's the ail of it?" asked the Captain. "Tell me, darlin'. Are ye sick?" She shook her head from side to side, like a suffering and weary child, and made no further answer. CHAPTER XV MART'S VISIT TO HIS SISTER Bertha woke next morning with a sense of weariness and desolation still at her heart, but she dressed and went to breakfast with Haney at an hour so early that the dining-room was nearly empty. Lucius, with quiet insistence upon the importance of his employers, had secured a place at a window overlooking the lake, and was glad to see his mistress brighten as her eyes swept the burnished shoreless expanse. Haney, still troubled by her languid air and gloomy face, took heart, and talked of what Chicago was in the days when he saw it and what it was now. "People say it don't improve. But listen: when I was here the Palmer House was the newly built wonder of the West, the streets were tinkling with bobtail horse-cars. And now look at it!" Bertha went back to her room, still in nerveless and despondent mood, not knowing what to do. The Captain proposed the usual round. "We'll take an auto-car, and go to the parks, and inspect the Lake Shore Drive and the Potter Palmer castle. Then we'll go down and see where the World's Fair was. Then we'll visit the Wheat Pit. 'Tis all there is, bedad." Lucius, who had been answering the 'phone in the hall, came in at the moment to say; "A lady wishes to speak with Mrs. Haney." "A lady! Who?" "A certain Mrs. Brent--a friend of Miss Franklin's." Bertha's face darkened. "Oh I'd forgot all about her. Miss Franklin gave me a letter to her," she explained, as she went out. She had no wish to see Mrs. Brent. On the contrary, she had an aversion to seeing or doing anything. But there was something compelling in the cool, sweet, quiet voice which came over the line, and before realizing it she had promised to meet her at eleven o'clock. Mrs. Brent then added: "I am consumed with desire to see you, for Dor--I mean Miss Franklin--has been writing to me about you. You're just in time to come to a little dinner of mine--don't make any engagement for to-morrow night. I'm coming down immediately." Bertha quite gravely answered, "All right, I'll be here," and hung up the receiver, committed to an interview that became formidable, now that the sweetness of the voice had died out of her ears. "Who was it?" asked the Captain. "A friend of Miss Franklin's--sounds just like her voice, but I think she's only a cousin. She wants to see me, and I've promised to be here at eleven." The Captain looked a little disappointed. "Well, we can take a spin up the lake. Lucius, go hire a buckboard and we're off." "There's an auto-car waiting, sir. I ordered it half an hour ago."