Talbot wasn't fair about that Philadelphia purchase, and I gave it up and
came home. I got here a little after dark and found my husband had taken
Billie--that's our little boy--and gone. I knew, of course, that he had
gone to _his_ father's hoping to bring him round, for both our fathers are
simply crazy about Billie. But you see I never go to Mr. Talbot's and my
husband never goes--Dear me!" she broke off suddenly. "I suppose I ought
to telephone and see if Billie is all right."

The Hopper, greatly alarmed, thrust his head forward as she pondered this.
If she telephoned to her father-in-law's to ask about Billie, the jig
would be up! He drew his hand across his face and fell back with relief as
she went on, a little absently:--

"Mr. Talbot hates telephoning, and it might be that my husband is just
getting him to the point of making concessions, and I shouldn't want to
interrupt. It's so late now that of course Roger and Billie will spend the
night there. And Billie and Christmas ought to be a combination that would
soften the hardest heart! You ought to see--you just ought to see Billie!
He's the cunningest, dearest baby in the world!"

The Hopper sat pigeon-toed, beset by countless conflicting emotions. His
ingenuity was taxed to its utmost by the demands of this complex
situation. But for his returning suspicion that Muriel was leading up to
something; that she was detaining him for some purpose not yet apparent,
he would have told her of her husband's note and confessed that the adored
Billie was at that moment enjoying the reluctant hospitality of Happy Hill
Farm. He resolved to continue his policy of silence as to the young heir's
whereabouts until Muriel had shown her hand. She had not wholly abandoned
the thought of telephoning to her father-in-law's, he found, from her next
remark.