On a table I saw a book, as though Elaine had cast it down when
the lawyer arrived to call on the daughter under pretense of
waiting for her father. Crumpled on the table was the Star. They
had read the story.
"Who is it, Jennings?" she asked.
"A reporter, Miss Dodge," answered the butler glancing
superciliously back at me, "and you know how your father dislikes
to see anyone here at the house," he added deferentially to her.
I took in the situation at a glance. Bennett was trying not to
look discourteous, but this was a call on Elaine and it had been
interrupted. I could expect no help from that quarter. Still, I
fancied that Elaine was not averse to trying to pique her visitor
and determined at least to try it.
"Miss Dodge," I pleaded, bowing as if I had known them all my
life, "I've been trying to find your father all the evening. It's
very important."
She looked up at me surprised and in doubt whether to laugh or
stamp her pretty little foot in indignation at my stupendous
nerve.
She laughed. "You are a very brave young man," she replied with a
roguish look at Bennett's discomfiture over the interruption of
the tete-a-tete.
There was a note of seriousness in it, too, that made me ask
quickly, "Why?"
The smile flitted from her face and in its place came a frank
earnest expression which I later learned to like and respect very
much.
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