Dorothy Dixon and the Double Cousin

“Why—good heavens, girl! How in the world did you escape?”

Dorothy Dixon heard the low, eager whisper at her elbow but disregarded it. She was intent on selecting a tie from the colorful rack on the counter before her. She spoke to the clerk:

“I’ll take this one, and that’ll make four. I hope Daddy will approve my taste in Christmas presents,” she smiled, and laid a bill on her purchases.

“But—please, dear, tell me! Don’t you know I’m worried crazy? Who let you out?”

This time Dorothy felt a touch on her arm. She wheeled quickly to face a tall, slender young fellow of twenty-two or three. As she stared at him, half indignant, half wondering, she saw sincere distress in his brown eyes, and in the lines of his pleasant face. Hat in hand, he waited anxiously for an answer to his question, while the crowd of holiday shoppers poured through the aisles about them.

Dorothy’s eyes softened, then danced. “It seems to me,” she said, “that you have the wires twisted—it’s not I who’ve escaped, but you! Run along now and find your keeper. You’re evidently in need of one!”

“Your change and package, miss,” the impersonal voice of the haberdashery clerk intervened and Dorothy turned back to the counter.

“But why on earth are you acting this way, Janet?” The strange young man was at her elbow again.

Once more Dorothy turned swiftly toward him but when she spoke her eyes and voice were serious. “Do you really mean to say you think you’re speaking to Janet Jordan? Because—”

“My dear—what are you trying to tell me?” He broke in impatiently. “I certainly ought to know the girl I’m going to marry!”

Dorothy nodded slowly. “I agree with you—you ought to—but then, you see, you don’t!”

The young man crushed his soft felt hat in his hands and took a step nearer to her. “Look here—what is the matter with you? I know you’ve been through a lot, but—” He broke off abruptly, a gleam of horror and suspicion in his honest eyes. “Janet! What have they done to you?”

Dorothy laid a firm hand on his arm. “Sh! Be quiet—listen to me.” Then she added gently—“I am not Janet Jordan, your fiancee.”

“You’re not—!”

“No. My name is Dorothy Dixon—and I’m Janet’s first cousin.”

The young man seemed flabbergasted for a moment. Then he stammered—“Wh-why, it’s astounding—the resemblance, I mean! You’re alike as—as two peas. If you were twins—”

“But you see,” she smiled, “our mothers, Janet’s and mine, were twins, and I guess that accounts for it. I’ve never seen Janet, but this is the third time, just recently, that I’ve been taken for her by her friends, Mr.—?”

“My name is Bright,” he supplied. “Howard Bright. Yes, now I can see a slight difference, Miss Dixon. You’re a bit taller and broader across the shoulders than she is. But it’s your personalities, more than anything else, that are altogether unlike. I hope you’ll forgive me, Miss Dixon, for making a nuisance of myself!”

“No indeed—that is, of course I will!” Dorothy laughed merrily. “You’re not a nuisance, you know, but,” and her tone became grave, “I can see that you’re in trouble. Is there—” she hesitated.

“Not I, Miss Dixon—that is, not directly. But,” he lowered his voice, “Janet is—is in very serious trouble. And for a moment, when I saw you, I thought that in some miraculous way she had escaped.”

Howard Bright’s face suddenly became almost haggard and Dorothy’s sympathy and concern for her cousin deepened into resolve.

“Look here, Mr. Bright,” she said abruptly, “we can’t talk here, in this shopping crowd, it’s a regular football scrimmage. Let’s go up to the mezzanine. A friend of mine is waiting there for me now, I’m a little late as it is, and—”

“But I can’t bother you with this,” he protested, “and especially—”

“Oh, come along,” she urged, “Bill is a grand guy when it comes to getting people out of messes. I insist you tell us all about it. After all, Janet’s my cousin, you know, and you’ll soon be a member of the family, won’t you?