Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/174

 sentence that might be uttered at their table. But the problem that confronted her was whether that annunciator had been placed there by Kestner himself, or by an enemy of Kestner's.

She had no time to give the matter further thought, however, for the three men were already advancing to their places. And Andelman, with his cocktail glass in his hand, was smiling across the table at the drooping-lidded girl in the dropping-bosomed Collet dinner-gown. For by this time Sadie was mmistakably drooping-lidded. One of the lessons which life had taught her was, when in doubt, to assume an outward mien of utter meekness.

"I am sorry," said the envoy from Washington, "that official discretion made me for even a moment seem inhospitable!"

Sadie disliked the man, and it took a struggle for her not to show it.

"It ain't troublin' me," she replied, as she tugged at the shoulder-straps of her gown. Then she suddenly remembered Wilsnach's stern admonition as to her verbs. So for the second time she blushed visibly as she amended her reply. "It isn't troubling me!"