"Surely, if you can," said his host and client.
"I went out for a little while about dusk on the back piazza, which you know is just above the kitchen, and a conversation below is audible there. At first I did not pay much attention to the murmur of voices, but gradually I became aware that some one was making love to Jane-Ellen—"
"Who was it?" asked Crane. "That wretched boy? That smug butler?"
"Alas, no," said Tucker. "If it had been one of the other servants I should not have thought it much harm. Unhappily, it was a young gentleman, a person so much her social superior—Well, my dear fellow, you get the idea."
"No one you knew, of course?"
"I never saw him before."
"How did you see him at all?"
This was the question that Tucker had been anticipating.
"Why, to tell you the truth, Burt," he said, "when I realized what was going on, I thought it my duty for your sake to find out. I looked over the railing—and just at the psychological moment when he kissed her."
Crane was tapping a cigarette thoughtfully on the palm of his hand, and did not at once answer. When he did, he looked up with a smile, and said: