Love Unbreakable
Comeback Of The Adored Heiress
Return, My Love: Wooing the Neglected Ex-Wife
Bound By Love: Marrying My Disabled Husband
Moonlit Desires: The CEO's Daring Proposal
Who Dares Claim The Heart Of My Wonderful Queen?
Unspoken Hearts: My Neglected Mute Wife's Escape
After Divorce: Loved By The Secret Billionaire CEO
A Second Chance With My Billionaire Love
Tears Of The Moon: A Dance With Lycan Royalty
So this was to be her home—and for three long months! Patricia Meade dropped her suitcase on a convenient chair and gazed curiously about her. A hotel bedroom, with stiff-looking twin brass beds, two willow rockers, one straight chair, an imposing mahogany bureau and one small table—absolutely all the furniture, if one excepted the stiff draperies at the windows and one or two not particularly artistic pastel pictures adorning the wall. Through a door and across the intervening sitting-room she could see another bedroom similarly equipped.
In the sitting-room, her father, Captain 4Meade, was tipping the grinning bell-boy who had brought up their luggage,—a snub-nosed, blue-eyed, curly-haired young chap whose gaze was rivetted adoringly on the captain's khaki uniform. When the boy was gone, the captain turned to the door of Patricia's bedroom.
"Well, honey! Not much like home, eh? Do you think you can stand it for three months? Jove!—if she hasn't got her suitcase and is unpacking it already!"
Patricia was indeed frantically flinging her belongings about.
"Oh, it's jolly!" she replied, over her shoulder. "But you're right about it's not being much like home. I felt as if I'd just expire if I couldn't see things strewn around in a sort of careless and cosy way, as if people really lived here!" She rose suddenly from her kneeling posture before the suitcase, ran across the room and thumped both stiff pillows on the beds, knocking them a trifle awry. "There! Now they look more like real beds that you 5sleep in and less like advertisements in the back of a magazine!" she laughed. "The sitting-room's a little better, with that big table and the pretty reading-lamp and the comfortable chairs. But do let's get a lot of papers and magazines and books at once, and have them lying all around as we do at home. Mother would be scandalized—she's always picking them up after us," she went rattling on, and then stopped abruptly, lips quivering, eyes bright with sudden tears.
"If mother could only be with us!" she sobbed.
"Now, honey, don't—" the captain soothed her, laying his arm lovingly around her shoulder. "Remember you're a soldier's daughter; and,—well, brace up! Mother's going to be beautifully taken care of in that Sanatorium, and Aunt Harriet is with her, to keep her company and incidentally to indulge in some little pet cures of her own, on the side."
"But why, oh! why did it have to happen just 6now?" wailed Patricia, refusing to be comforted.
"Is it any wonder that she broke down completely and had a bad case of nervous prostration, after waiting over a year for me to come back from France? And feeling sure, too, for the last six months that she'd never see me alive again after she heard I'd been taken a prisoner to Germany? It's enough to have broken down the nerve of a cave-woman. And your mother was always delicate."
"Oh, Daddy! It was like getting you back from the dead," sighed Patricia, hiding her head in his shoulder and shuddering at the memory. "And in three months, you're going back again!"
"But not to the dangers and horrors, this time," he reminded her, and added half under his breath, "Worse luck! Fortunately or unfortunately, my constitution will never stand the strain of trench-life again, after a few months of German prison-diet, etc. But I'm 7only too thankful that the Government has found use for me in some other capacity."
Patricia, who had been perched on his knee, snuggling her head in his coat collar, suddenly sat up straight and looked him in the eyes. "Daddy, can't you tell me what it is you're doing?" she begged. "I don't ask just from idle curiosity. I want to understand. I want to help you if I can. I love America, and I am a soldier's daughter, and I want to act intelligently about things and be of some use. That's one reason I'm so glad you've allowed me to be with you in this strange, big city and in this great hotel, for three months,—besides the joy of not being separated from you before you go back to Europe again for goodness knows how long! I want to do something for my country, too!"
The Captain stroked his short mustache for several silent moments before answering. "I quite understand how you feel," he said at length. "And I appreciate it. You're 8seventeen, Patricia,—almost a woman grown. I know I could trust you utterly with the whole thing, but it isn't wise,—in fact, it isn't even allowable. A government secret is a government secret, and cannot be revealed even to one's nearest and dearest. This much only, I can tell you. While I was a prisoner, I stumbled upon a very valuable secret, something new possessed by the enemy which, however, they have not had the gumption to make use of properly. But I saw that it could be vastly improved upon and made a hundred times more effective. The Government has charged me with this task, and I'm to take it back with me when I go. It's a very vital and important thing, Patricia, and may turn the tide for us. More I cannot tell you. It would not be wise nor even safe for you to know. And you can help me most by appearing to know nothing whatever about my affairs. Remember that,—to know nothing, whatever 9happens,—" He was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door and went to open it.