Page:Jackson Gregory--joyous trouble maker.djvu/61

Rh in their eyes. While the car rolled away these stood in the courtyard awaiting the coming of the second automobile. One of the men, a keen eyed, massive jawed man of forty with a touch of grey at the temples and an air of quiet, confident mastery, whose manner bespoke his habitual experience of getting what he wanted, grasped a moment of much chattering to say quietly to Beatrice:

"I heard in White Rock that a man named Steele, William Steele, had ridden out this way. Not a friend of yours, is he?"

Quickly she lifted interested eyes to his.

"No. I have just met him today. Do you know him then, Mr. Embry?"

"I know something of him," said Embry as quietly as before. "Rather a good deal. Is he still here?"

"No. Tell me, what sort of a man is he?"

"Not just the kind I'd like to see hanging around you," was Embry's rejoinder. "He's a crook, Miss Corliss; look out for him."

Then the others came and Joe Embry turned with his hostess toward them.

So William Steele was just plain crook, then? Joe Embry had said so, and Joe Embry was a man in whose opinions Beatrice Corliss placed more faith than in most men's. A boor first, a crook next. And she had let him lunch with her, he had had the assurance to behave toward her as he might have acted with a shop girl!

Could Steele have read her thoughts he must have