Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/511

 "I'd like to know his solution."

She merely smiled. It was her only smile during the interview, and the talk passed to the letters.

She had no idea, she said, why she was being so persecuted. The letters were stupid, and apparently meaningless, yet they annoyed her. Their audacity had now begun to worry her, as well. If anything could be done to stop them, she would be glad. Yes, they had ceased coming, for the time being, and perhaps it would be as well to wait and do nothing; but now Mr. Stellery himself was aroused and wished the matter investigated. He was too busy with his press of work to spend much time on the matter. He was a very busy man. Quite absorbed in his work and she had hoped to go abroad with him in the spring. At present it seemed impossible. And so on the talk ran, while her expression said, "What are you going to do about it? I don't care!"

Then a card was brought in, and she said, "It is Doctor Primfield, my husband's brother-in-law, you know. Married Paul's sister, who died two years ago. He's a physician. We see a good deal of him."

She did not add, "and he bores me"; but the merest drag in her words implied it. In another minute the doctor came bruskly in.

He was a nervous, slim, snapping-eyed man of thirty-five, with a jerky way of speaking and moving. He said, "Hello, Lila!" shook hands, bowed to Astro, and looked at him with a professional eye, seemed to decide that the palmist was all right, flapped himself into a seat, screwed his feet round the legs of a chair, and began to talk very fast to his hostess, ignoring Astro.