They left the at Ninety-sixth Street and walked up the Drive. Jimmy, like every one else who saw it for the time, a at the of the Pett mansion, but, rallying, his uncle up the path to the door.
"Your aunt will be in the drawing-room, I guess," said Mr. Pett, opening the door with his key.
Jimmy was looking him appreciatively. Mr. Pett's house might be an from without, but it had had the of the skill of the best in New York.
"A man be very happy in a house like this, if he didn't have to his days with work," said Jimmy.
Mr. Pett looked alarmed.
"Don't go saying anything like that to your aunt!" he urged. "She thinks you have come to settle down."
"So I have. I'm going to settle like a limpet. I I shall be in luxury on you twenty years from now. Is this the room?"
Mr. Pett opened the drawing-room door. A small object from a and in the middle of the room. This was Aida, Mrs. Pett's Pomeranian. Mr. Pett, the animal coldly, for he it, Jimmy into the room.
"Here's Jimmy Crocker, Nesta."
Jimmy was aware of a woman of middle age, so like his step-mother that for an his self-possession left him and he stammered.
"How—how do you do?"
His a on Mrs. Pett. She took it for the of remorse.
"I was very when your uncle me," she said. "I had not the idea that you were over. I am very to see you."
"Thank you."
"This is your cousin, Ogden."
Jimmy a boy on a settee. He had not on Jimmy's entrance, and he did not now. He did not the book he was reading.
"Hello," he said.
Jimmy over to the settee, and looked on him. He had got over his embarrassment, and, as with him, the to a breeziness. He Ogden in his well-covered ribs, producing a of from that youth.
"So this is Ogden! Well, well, well! You don't up, Ogden, but you do out. What are you—a perfect sixty-six?"
The which Mrs. Pett had of her nephew waned. She was by this the child she worshipped.
"Please do not Ogden, James," she said stiffly. "He is not very well to-day. His is weak."
"Been too much?" said Jimmy cheerfully.
"I was just the same at his age. What he wants is and of exercise."
"Say!" Ogden.
"Just look at this," Jimmy, a of around the boy's ribs. "All that ought to come off. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll a pair of and a and some sneakers, and I'll take him for a up Riverside Drive this evening. Do him no end of good. And a good skipping-rope, too. Nothing like it. In a of I'll have him as fit as a—"
"Ogden's case," said Mrs. Pett coldly, "which is very complicated, is in the hands of Doctor Briginshaw, in we have every confidence."
There was a silence, the paralysing of which Mr. Pett to by his and coughing. Mrs. Pett spoke.
"I that, now that you are here, James, you to settle and work hard."
"Indubitably. Like a beaver," said Jimmy, of Mr. Pett's warning. "The only trouble is that there to be a little as to what I am best for. We talked it over in uncle Pete's office and at no conclusion."
"Can't you think of anything?" said Mr. Pett.
"I looked right through the telephone the other day—"
"The other day? But you only this morning."
"I this morning. When I was looking up your address so that I go and see you," said Jimmy glibly. "It a long time ago. I think the of all those in your office has me. I think the best plan would be for me to settle here and learn how to be an or something by mail. I was reading an in a magazine as we came up on the subway. I see they to teach you anything from metal to raising. The thing 'You are still you training.' It to me to apply to my case exactly. I had them a line to-night for a about chickens."
Whatever Mrs. Pett might have on this was by the entrance of Ann. From the window of her room Ann had the of Jimmy and her uncle, and now, having allowed time to for the to make Mrs. Pett's acquaintance, she came to see how were going.
She was well satisfied with what she saw. A which she in the she to natural to the situation.
She looked at Jimmy enquiringly. Mrs. Pett had not her of Mr. Pett's telephone call, so Jimmy, she realised, had to be to her. She waited for some one to say something.
Mr. Pett the introduction.
"Jimmy, this is my niece, Ann Chester. This is Jimmy Crocker, Ann."
Jimmy not the start of which she gave. It was and convincing.
"Jimmy Crocker!"
Mr. Pett was on the point of that this was not the time Ann had met Jimmy, but refrained. After all, that had five years ago. Jimmy had almost all about it. There was no use in making him awkward. It was up to Ann. If she wanted to the grievance, let her. It was no of his.
"I you weren't over!" said Ann.
"I my mind."
Mr. Pett, who had been at them, an exclamation.
"I've got it! I've been trying all this while to think where it was that I saw you before. It was on the Atlantic!"
Ann Jimmy's eye. She was to see that he was not by this development.
"Did you come over on the Atlantic, Mr. Crocker?" she said. "Surely not? We on her ourselves. We should have met."
"Don't call me Mr. Crocker," said Jimmy. "Call me Jimmy. Your mother's brother's wife's sister's second husband is my father. Blood is than water. No, I came over on the Caronia. We this morning."
"Well, there was a just like you on the Atlantic," Mr. Pett.
Mrs. Pett said nothing. She was Jimmy with a and eye.
"I I'm a common type," said Jimmy.
"You the man I mean," said Mr. Pett, of the he was in two of his hearers. "He sat two tables away from us at meals. You him, Nesta?"
"As I was too to come to meals, I do not."
"Why, I I saw you once talking to him on deck, Ann."
"Really?" said Ann. "I don't any one who looked at all like Jimmy."
"Well," said Mr. Pett, puzzled. "It's very strange. I I'm wrong." He looked at his watch. "Well, I'll have to be to the office."
"I'll come with you part of the way, uncle Pete," said Jimmy. "I have to go and for my to be here."
"Why not phone to the hotel?" said Mr. Pett. It to Jimmy and Ann that he was doing this of thing on purpose. "Which hotel did you them at?"
"No, I shall have to go there. I have some packing to do."
"You will be to lunch?" said Ann.
"Thanks. I shan't be gone more than an hour."
For a moment after they had gone, Ann relaxed, happy and relieved. Everything had gone splendidly. Then a ran through her whole as Mrs. Pett spoke. She spoke excitedly, in a voice, over to Ann.
"Ann! Did you notice anything? Did you anything?"
Ann her with an effort.
"Whatever do you mean, aunt Nesta?"
"About that man, who calls himself Jimmy Crocker."
Ann the of the chair.
"Who calls himself Jimmy Crocker? I don't understand."
Ann to laugh. It to her an age she produced any at all, and when it came it was a laugh.
"What put that idea into your head? Surely, if he says he is Jimmy Crocker, it's to him, isn't it? How Jimmy Crocker know that you were to Jimmy Crocker over here? You didn't tell any one, did you?"
This Mrs. Pett a little, but she did not to a perfectly good it to unreasonable.
"They have their everywhere," she said doggedly.
"Who have?"
"The Secret Service people from other countries. Lord Wisbeach was telling me about it yesterday. He said that I ought to everybody. He said that an attempt might be on Willie's at any moment now."
"He was joking."
"He was not. I have any one so serious. He said that I ought to every fresh person who came into the house as a possible criminal."
"Well, that guy's fresh enough," Ogden from the settee.
Mrs. Pett started.
"Ogden! I had that you were there." She a of horror, as the of his presence started a new train of thought. "Why, this man may have come to you! I of that."
Ann it time to intervene. Mrs. Pett was much too near the truth for comfort. "You mustn't things, aunt Nesta. I it comes from the of you do. Surely, it is for this man to be an impostor. How would he take such a risk? He must know that you him at any moment by over to Mrs. Crocker to ask if her step-son was in America."
It was a stroke, for it a plan of action which, if followed, would for her schemes, but Ann not from it. She wanted to know her aunt had any of Mrs. Crocker for information, or the was too for her to allow her to with her sister in any way. She again as Mrs. Pett in her chair.
"I should not of to Eugenia."
"I that," said Ann. "But an would not know that you like that, would he?"
"I see what you mean."
Ann again. The was, however, only momentary.
"I cannot understand, though," said Mrs. Pett, "why your uncle should have been so positive that he saw this man on the Atlantic."
"Just a resemblance, I suppose. Why, uncle Peter said he saw the man he was like Jimmy Crocker talking to me. If there had been any resemblance, shouldn't I have it uncle Peter?"
Assistance came from an quarter.
"I know the uncle Peter meant," said Ogden. "He wasn't like this guy at all."
Ann was too for the help to at it. Her mind, for a on the matter, that Ogden must have her on with somebody else than Jimmy. She had not the for those who her society.
Mrs. Pett to be impressed.
"I may be my away with me," she said.
"Of you are, aunt Nesta," said Ann thankfully. "You don't what a you have got. When I was that last of yours, I was at the ideas you had of. I saying so to uncle Peter. You can't to have a like yours and not things, can you?"
Mrs. Pett demurely. She looked at her niece, waiting for more, but Ann had said her say.
"You are perfectly right, my dear child," she said when she was sure the was not to be resumed. "No I have been to this man. But Lord Wisbeach's naturally more on a mind like mine than they would have done in the case of another woman."
"Of course," said Ann.
She was happy now. It had been while it had lasted, but was all right now.
"And, fortunately," said Mrs. Pett, "there is a way by which we can out for if the man is James Crocker."
Ann again.
"A way? What way?"
"Why, don't you remember, my dear, that Skinner has James Crocker for years."
"Skinner?"
The name familiar, but in the of the moment Ann not identify it.
"My new butler. He came to me from Eugenia. It was he who let us in when we called at her house. Nobody know than he this person is James Crocker or not."
Ann as if she had to the limit of her endurance. She was not prepared to with this blow. She had not the to under it. Dully she that her must be as a failure they had had a of success. Her must not return to the house to be exposed. She saw that enough. If he came back, he would walk into a trap. She rose quickly. She must him. She must him he arrived—and he might arrive at any moment now.
"Of course," she said, herself with an effort, "I of that. That makes it all simple. . . . I won't be late. I'm hungry."
She to the door, but, directly she had closed it her, ran to her room, up a hat, and and out into Riverside Drive. Just as she the street, Jimmy the corner. She ran him, up her hands.
