“Hubert Lennon!” Ruth exclaimed, giving her hand to his grasp--a
nice, pleased, and friendly grasp. She had ventured that, whoever he
was, he had known Cynthia Gail long ago but had not seen her
recently; not for several years, perhaps, when she was so young a
girl that everyone called her Cynthia. Her venture went well.
She was able to learn from him, without his suspecting that she had
not known, that she had an engagement with him for the afternoon;
they were to go somewhere--she could not well inquire where--for
some event of distinct importance for which she was supposed to be
“ready.”
“I’m not ready, I’m sorry to say,” Ruth seized swiftly the chance
for fleeing to refuge in “her” room. “I’ve just come in, you know.
But I’ll dress as quickly as I can.”
“I’ll be right here,” he agreed.
She stepped into a waiting elevator and drew back into the corner;
two men, who talked together, followed her in and the car started
upwards. If the Germans had sent someone to the hotel to observe her
when she appeared to take the place of Cynthia Gail, that person
pretty clearly was not Hubert Lennon, Ruth thought; but she could
not be sure of these two men. They were usual looking, middle-aged
men of the successful type who gazed at her more than casually;
neither of them called a floor until after Ruth asked for the third;
then the other said, “Fourth,” sharply while the man who remained
silent left the elevator after Ruth. She was conscious that he came
behind her while she followed the room numbers along the hallway
until she found the door of 347; he passed her while she was opening
it. She entered and, putting the key on the inside, she locked
herself in, pressing close to the panel to hear whether the man
returned. But she heard only a rapping at a door farther on; the
man’s voice saying, “I, Adele;” then a woman’s and a child’s voices.
“Nerves!” Ruth reproached herself. “You have to begin better than
this.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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