"You--Mr. Sybarite!"
"I, Miss Blessington."
"But--incredible!" she cried. "I can't believe you ..."
Facing her, he lifted his scarlet visor, meeting her stare with his
wistful and diffident smile.
[Illustration: Facing her, he lifted his scarlet visor.]
"You see," he said, readjusting the mask.
"But--what does this mean?"
"Do you remember our talk on the way home after _Kismet_--four hours
or several years ago: which is it?"
"I remember we talked ..."
"And I--clumsily enough, Heaven knows!--told you that I'd go far for
one who'd been kind and tolerant to me, if she were in trouble and
could use my poor services?"
"I remember--yes."
"You suspected--surely--it was yourself I had in mind?"
"Why, yes; but--"
"And you'll certainly allow that what happened later, at the door,
when I stood in the way of the importunate Mr. 'B.S.'--if I'm not
sadly in error--was enough to convince any one that you needed a
friend's good offices?"
"So," she said softly, with glimmering eyes--"so for that you followed
me here, Mr. Sybarite!"
"I wish I might claim it. But it wouldn't be true. No--I didn't follow
you."
"Please," she begged, "don't mystify me--"
"I don't mean to. But to tell the truth, my own head is still awhirl
with all the chapter of accidents that brought me here. Since you
flew off with B.S., following afoot, I've traversed a vast deal of
adventure--to wind up here. If," he added, grinning, "this is the
wind-up. I've a creepy, crawly feeling that it isn't...."
"Miss Blessington," he pursued seriously, "if you have patience to
listen to what I've been through since we parted in Thirty-eighth
Street--?" Encouraged by her silence he went on: "I've broken the bank
at a gambling house; been held up for my winnings at the pistol's
point--but managed to keep them. I've been in a raid and escaped only
after committing felonious assault on two detectives. I then
burglarised a private residence, and saved the mistress of the house
from being murdered by her rascally husband--blundered thence to
the deadliest dive in New York--met and slanged mine ancient enemy,
the despoiler of my house--took part in a drunken brawl--saved my
infatuated young idiot of a cousin, Peter Kenny, from assassination--took
him home, borrowed his clothing, and impudently invited myself to this
party on the mere suspicion that 'Molly Lessing' and Marian Blessington
might be one and the same, after all!... And all, it appears, that I
might come at last to beg a favour of you."
"I can't think what it can be," breathed the girl, dumfounded.
"To forgive my unpardonable impertinence--"
"I've not been conscious of it."
"You'll recognise it immediately. I am about to transgress your
privacy with a question--two, in fact. Will you tell me, please, in
confidence, why you refused my cousin, Peter Kenny, when he asked you
to marry him?"
Colouring, she met his eyes honestly.
"Because--why, it was so utterly absurd! He's only a boy. Besides, I
don't care for him--that way."
"You care for some one else--'that way'?"
"Yes," said the girl softly, averting her face.
"Is it--Mr. Bayard Shaynon?"
"No," she replied after a perceptible pause.
"But you have promised to marry him?"
"I once made him that promise--yes."
"You mean to keep it?"
"I must."
"Why?"
"It was my father's wish."
"And yet--you don't like him!"