Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/199

Rh "I suppose you feel rather done out?" he ventured, as I switched to a dish of salted nuts.

"Why should I?" I parried, wringing a perverse satisfaction out of the fact I could be a puzzle to him.

"I thought that you must—well, that you must have had rather a hard night of it," he explained. But he did it somewhat haltingly.

"Where?" I inquired, determined not to make his investigations too easy for him.

"That was what I was hoping you would tell me," he replied.

The Jap had brought in tea-things, and my Hero-Man, I noticed, was making the tea with his own hands. It didn't seem right; yet I knew that it must be right, or Wendy Washburn would never have done it. The tea itself, however, tasted like plum-blossoms, and I didn't skimp it, for after emptying that dish of salted nuts I found that I was terribly thirsty.

"It won't keep you awake?" he asked, as I downed my second cup.

I had to laugh at that.

"Me awake? I've got other things to keep me awake!"

"Worries?"