New Britain herald., 1922-08-30
The Way "the Evenings Business
 Began.

At the low tapping which we all knew was a signal, l dropped my cards nervously, and felt suddenly ashamed as I saw that the other players of the bridge game held theirs as casually as If there had been no Interruption, II was only another In stance of the poise which years of work like theirs bring 10 women like Lillian and men like my father and Allen Drake. I was more akin to Katie-I told myself contemptuously, as the girl gave a little cry at the tapping, then clapped her hand over her mouth and looked at Lillian af frightedly,
 Is that your idea of being an ac- tress?" Lillian demanded sterny, put ting her finger unerrngly upon the thing best calculated to stimulate Katie and to hanish her remors. My little maid threw her head back at the question and looked at Lillian steadily.
 T no open my mouth again tonight unless you tell me"
 Good See that you don't" Lil- Han rejoined. She had risen when she rebuked Katie, and laid her cards upon the table carelessly. At the girls promise, she had moved to- ward the library unhurriedly, with the same effect of casualness. and her last remark was made with her hand upon the door-knob,
 We heard Lillian open the door the length of the short bar-chain which we keep upon it after nightfall, and then there came to our ears the sound of low-voiced but staccato questions and answers. and the subse- quent shutting Of the door
 The Moment Approaches.
 I could distinguish no words of the low colloquy, and I thing my fathers older ears were no better than mine. But Allen Drake has the hearing of a North American Indian, and he abandoned his apparent study of the hand upon the table, laid his own cards down beside them, and rose from his chair.
 T fancy the bridge game is off for an hour or two.' he said with an en- tirely different voice from his usual drawing tones.
 l looked at him with the amazed curiosity which always comes to me when I see Allen Drake's reaction to 8 coming struggle. It is like seeing l lazy, aristocratic, pampered house | dog turning before ones eyes into a gaunt, keen-eyed and relentless hunt ing animal
 My father remained seated. but I | saw in his eyes the same tense alert i ness which Allen Drake's mirrored. And when Lillian returned to the room with her face slightly paler than usual, and little lines etched at the corners of her mouth-the invar- fable signs of repressed emotion with | her-I knew that the evenings busi- i ness was indeed at hand.
 He's started-''
 I realized another thing also. With | characteristic modesty. Lillian had | referred to Tom Chester's arrange ments of signals under Aliens diree- tion' Yet when the signal had come it had been she not Mir. Drake, who answered it She it was whose brain had planned everything and WAS di- recting everything, up to the time when Allen Drake should take over the handling of the man Smith for the purpose in Lillian's phraseology | of putting the fear into him"
 She stood just inside the door for a tense second or two, breathing a bit apidly-something she never used to do, no matter how exciting or dangerous the task confronting her. As I watched her I felt my own heart constrict with the sudden though of the auricular weakness which has developed in her during the last year She has been decided