Blair smiled with an effect of remote amusement. Inwardly she knew
sharp annoyance. She wished she could smack that loitering child. . . .
Very certainly she would betray no degrading interest in her fortunes.
The Martins were not to think that she was intent on placing _any one_!

"Johnny Byrd's a child," said she indifferently.

"He's been of age two years," said the youthful aunt, "and he's out of
college now and very much a catch--all his vacations used to be
hairbreadth escapes. Of course he courts danger," she threw in with a
little laugh and a sidelong look.

But Mrs. Blair was not laughing. She was blaming herself for the
negligence which had made this situation possible, although--extenuation
made haste to add within her--no one could humanly be expected to be
going up and down a trail all afternoon to gather in the stragglers. And
she had told Ruth to wait.

"She's probably just tired out," said the stout widower with strong
accents of sympathy. "Climb too much for her, and very sensibly they've
turned back."

"If I could only be sure. If I could only be sure she wasn't hurt--or
lost," said Mrs. Blair doubtfully.

"Lost!" Bob Martin derided. "Lost--on a straight trail. Not unless they
jolly wanted to!"

"Don't spoil the party, mother," was Ruth's edged advice. "Ri-Ri hasn't
broken any legs or necks. And she wasn't alone to get lost. She just
gave up and Johnny Byrd took her home. I know her foot was blistered at
the dance last night and that's probably the matter."

It was the explanation they decided to adopt.

Mrs. Blair, recalling that this was not her expedition, made a double
duty of appearing sensibly at ease, although the nervous haste with
which a sudden noise would bring her to alertness, facing the path,
revealed some inner tension.

The young people were inclined to be hilarious over the affair,
inventing fresh reasons for the absent ones, reasons that ranged from
elopement to wood pussies.

"There was one around last night," the tennis champion insisted.

But the hilarity was only a flash in the pan. After its flare the party
dragged. Curiosity preoccupied some; uneasiness communicated itself to
others. And the frank abstraction of Ruth and Bob had a depressing
effect upon the atmosphere.

And the runaways were missed. Johnny Byrd had an infectious way of
making a party go and Maria Angelina's sweet soprano had become so much
a part of every gathering that its absence now made song