Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/54

44 "Of course," he admitted, as though he understood it all from the first. And without quite knowing it he led me out, step by step, until he had me and pigeonholed. And the harder I tried to explain myself, to redeem myself, the wider his eyes became.

"You poor little muddle-headed kid!" he said in a tone that gave me a funny feeling in the throat, "they haven't handed you half a chance!"

Then he told me, in his steely yet offhanded way, that he was going to motor me back to town. It was still easy for me to recall the smell of the sea, the sound of waves plunging under the board-walk, the lights of his high-power roadster as he circled in to take me aboard. It didn't seem real. It was like a dream. I thought he was going to preach, on the way in, but he was silent during most of that run. I even thought he was going to say something about our meeting again, or ask, as Bud's friends would, where he'd be able to find me when he had a day off. But he said no such thing. What he did say was something quite different from what I had expected.

"Under the circumstances, you know," he quietly explained, after we had crossed the bridge, "it would be obviously absurd for me to give you my home