Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/328

308 "So you're here too?" she finally said. She said it in an amazingly matter-of-fact tone, more as though she were thinking aloud, indeed, than addressing a stranger.

"Yes, I'm here," I announced, following her cue as to matter-of-factness, "and until I find out certain things, I think I'm going to stay here!"

She merely stared at me with her rebelliously reckless and mournful eyes. Then she sank into a chair that stood beside her. She succeeded in making the movement an altogether listless one. It seemed to signify that although boring her I would probably have to be put up with.

"In the first place, I want to know how you got out here?" I demanded, realizing that I had to do something more than dally at the heels of that languid-eyed young lady in the peignoir.

She looked up at me from under her bent brows. It was more the look of a spoiled and wayward child than of a woman.

"You're not going to be disagreeable about this, too, are you?" she petulantly inquired.

"I only want to know the truth," was my retort, as I stood there, with one hand still on the door-knob.

She gave a sigh, half weariness, half relief.