Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/330

 "The butler's. Mrs. Baretta does nothing so declassé," commented Ellison, "as to spend the winter in Chicago. She's at Palm Beach."

"Yes," said Calvin absentmindedly. "Has Zenn been picked up?"

Ellison nodded. "He has such a beautiful alibi that there's no doubt whatever he was in that car."

"Who else have you?"

Ellison repeated several names, adding, "Probably the first three were along with Zenn; they have the same alibi. The Royle girl's all right, is she?"

"Quite," said Calvin, looking away. "I had mistaken her character completely—completely."

"Looks as if she told the truth about the man in the window."

"She told what was essentially true, throughout," corrected Calvin, emphatically. "She was trying, throughout, for what she knew was right. She's an unusual person, Ellison. When you consider what she came from and what she had to see around her and to look past to see Schubert's and Mozart's names—and to feel it out and work it out for herself," he continued, none too coherently. "I've never met her equal," he summed up, impulsively. "Never."

"Oh!" said Ellison, uncomfortably, though he suspected not half the inward tumult and supposed that Clarke had a severe attack of conscience over his responsibility for wrong done to others. "Well, she's no worse off; and she'll have Ketlar free to-morrow. He won't be damaged: after to-day's papers are circulated he'll just have been advertised. This has raised his value. Why, he'll drag down twice as much at the Echo, and he'll look twice as good to her."

"Hm," muttered Calvin, turning his back.