Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/169

 his talk is going to help straighten out this Keudell case."

Sadie looked up at him out of wistfully reproving eyes.

"It was nice o' yuh to send me them flowers—those flowers," she told him.

"You deserved them," Wilsnach protested.

For the second time Sadie sighed.

"And I sure got a lot out o' that spiel o' yours in the art gallery," she went on, smiling gratefully as he held her cloak for her.

"We can get there oftener, when this case is over," explained Wilsnach, looking at his watch.

"I'm ready," she announced, her face sobering as she noticed his movement. And she remained silent as they made their way to the street and stepped into the waiting taxicab. She was perversely quiet, too, during the ride to the carriage-entrance of the huge hotel just off the Avenue.

"You ought to enjoy this dinner," Wilsnach' told her, as they made their way through the carpeted corridors to the chambre separée where Kestner was awaiting them.

Still again her wistful eye sought his preoccupied face.