Page:Anna Katharine Green - Leavenworth Case.djvu/143

Rh returned; and in a few words told him when and where.

"Humph!" said he at the conclusion; "he is evidently as much interested in you as we are in him. "How's that? I think I see," he added, after a moment’s thought. "Pity you spoke to him; may have created an unfavorable impression; and everything depends upon your meeting without any distrust."

He rose and paced the floor.

"Well, we must move slowly, that is all. Give him a chance to see you in other and better lights. Drop into the Hoffman House reading-room. Talk with the best men you meet while there; but not too much, or too indiscriminately. Mr. Clavering is fastidious, and will not feel honored by the attentions of one who is hail-fellow-well-met with everybody. Show yourself for what you are, and leave all advances to him; he'll make them."

"Supposing we are under a mistake, and the man I met on the corner of Thirty-seventh Street was not Mr. Clavering?"

"I should be greatly surprised, that’s all."

Not knowing what further objection to make, I remained silent.

"And this head of mine would have to put on its thinking-cap," he pursued jovially.

"Mr. Gryce," I now said, anxious to show that all this talk about an unknown party had not served to put my own plans from my mind, "there is one person of whom we have not spoken."

"No?" he exclaimed softly, wheeling around until his broad back confronted me. "And who may that be?"

"Why, who but Mr.—" I could get no further.