Page:Mary Rinehart - Man in Lower Ten.djvu/321

 get his dinner coat for you. How well do you know her?" he asked, with his hand on the knob.

"If you mean Dolly—?"

"Alison."

"Fairly well," I said cautiously. "Not as well as I would like to. I dined with her last week in Washington. And—I knew her before that."

Forbes touched a bell instead of going out, and told the servant who answered to see if Mr. Granger's suit-case had gone. If not, to bring it across the hall. Then he came back to his former position on the bed.

"You see, we feel responsible for Allie—near relation and all that," he began pompously. "And we can't talk to the people here at the house—all the men are in love with her, and all the women are jealous. Then—there's a lot of money, too, or will be."

"Confound the money!" I muttered. "That is—nothing. Razor slipped."

"I can tell you," he went on, "because you don't lose your head over every pretty face—although Allie is more than that, of course. But