"Miss the boat!" the head clerk exclaimed. "If she gets away from Millie
and me she's got to start now. We'll go on board to-night!"
A half-hour later Millie was on her knees packing a trunk, and her
husband was telephoning to the drug-store for a sponge-bag and a cure
for seasickness.
Owing to the joy in her heart and to the fact that she was on her knees,
Millie was alternately weeping into the trunk-tray and offering up
incoherent prayers of thanksgiving. Suddenly she sank back upon the
floor.
"John!" she cried, "doesn't it seem sinful to sail away in a 'royal
suite' and leave this beautiful flat empty?"
Over the telephone John was having trouble with the drug clerk.
"No!" he explained, "I'm not seasick _now_. The medicine I want is to be
taken later. I _know_ I'm speaking from the Pavonia; but the Pavonia
isn't a ship; it's an apartment-house."
He turned to Millie. "We can't be in two places at the same time," he
suggested.
"But, think," insisted Millie, "of all the poor people stifling to-night
in this heat, trying to sleep on the roofs and fire-escapes; and our
flat so cool and big and pretty--and no one in it.
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