Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/174

150 She had listened with raised brows.

“I didn’t know I was a subject of discussion”

“You’re not—but you sent me to him”

“Oh—Mr. Godfrey!” A little cloud came upon her face; she opened her lips to say something more, but a step sounded on the stair and Tremaine came slowly down. There was a look on his face not pleasant to see, but he had banished all trace of it as he came forward to greet them.

When the men joined the women after dinner, they found Miss Croydon sitting at the piano idly touching the keys. Tremaine went to her with a directness that argued purpose. She looked up, expecting perhaps to see Drysdale; her eyes narrowed and hardened as they met Tremaine’s.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you to sing,” he said, apparently not noticing her change of expression, “but feared you might think me bold. You see, I am taking the bull by the horns. Some instinct told me””

“The instinct is wrong,” she interrupted, dropping her eyes to the keyboard. “I do not sing.”

“No? Then I shall miss a great pleasure which I had promised myself. You have a singing voice.”

There was a penetrating fascination about the man which compelled her to lift her eyes to his. He was smiling, radiant, triumphant, as a general, confident of victory, just swinging into battle. She shivered slightly, as he bent closer and added something in a tone of voice too low to be heard by the others in the room.