The Drums of Jeopardy - Page 161/202

"I promise."

"I'll tell you a little secret. It was the boss who sent you out of

town. He was afraid you'd do something like this. When you are ready to

go home you'll find Tony Bernini downstairs. Sore as a crab, too, I'll

bet."

"I'll be glad to go home with him," said Kitty, thoroughly chastened in

spirit.

"That's all for to-night."

Kitty and Hawksley stepped out into the corridor, the problem they

had sought to shake off reestablished in their thoughts, added too, if

anything.

"How do you feel?"

"Top-hole," lied Hawksley. "My word, though, I wobbled a bit going

round that block. I almost kissed the hobby. I say, he thought I'd been

tilting a few. But it was a lark!"

"Dinner is served," announced Kuroki at their elbows. His expression was

coldly bland.

"Dinner!" cried Hawksley, brightening. "What does the American soldier

say?"

"Eats!" answered Kitty.

All tension vanished in the double laughter that followed. They

approached dinner with something of the spirit that had induced Hawksley

to fiddle and Kitty to pass the hat in front of the Metropolitan Opera

House. Hawksley's recuperative powers promised well for his future. By

the time coffee was served his head had cleared and his legs had resumed

their normal functions of support.

"I was so infernally bored!"

"And now?" asked Kitty, recklessly.

"Fancy asking me that!"

"Do you realize that all this is dreadfully improper?"

"Oh, I say, now! Where's the harm? If ever there was a young woman

capable of taking care of herself--"

"That isn't it. It's just being here alone with you."

"But you are not alone with me!"

"Kuroki?" Kitty shrugged.

"No. At my side of the table is Stefani Gregor; at yours the man who has

befriended me."

"Thank you for that. I don't know of anything nicer you could say. But

the outside world would see neither of our friends. I did not come here

to see you."

"No need of telling me that."

"I had a problem--a very difficult one--to solve; and I believed that I

might solve it if I came to these rooms. I had quite forgotten you."

Instantly, upon receiving this blunt explanation, he determined that she

should never cease to remember him after this night. His vanity was not

touched; it was something far more elusive. It was perhaps a recurrence

of that inexplicable desire to hurt. Somehow he sensed the flexible

steel behind which lay the soul of this baffling girl. He would

presently find a chink in the armour with that old Amati.