“Well, it puts me in a rather awkward position; I’ve left the fellows your address; they’ll be here shortly.”
“Why don’t you head ’em off?” suggested Archibald, coolly.
Mr. Hunnewell Hollis gave his cousin a glance of anger. “The whole thing is rather fishy,” he said, suspiciously. “I trust, Jerry, for the honor of the family——”
Archibald never quite detested his cousin so much before.
“There are a great many adventuresses about; they are on the lookout for rich young men like you, Jerry,” and Hunnewell Hollis, giving his cousin a rather gravely serious nod, took up his hat and cane and departed.
Archibald went directly upstairs. He heard a rustle of a dress against the furniture. Had Elvira been listening? He hoped not.
VI.
Adventuress! How that odious word rang in his ears as he entered the room where the sweet primrose face was still in its corner of the sofa. He swore he would never write to, nor speak to, Hunnewell Hollis again. He had done with him forever. Yet, had he heard the rustle of her dress? It gave him a slightly disagreeable sensation to think that it were possible. Elvira Price apparently had not moved from her seat. She was in the same pretty attitude in which he had left her, leaning back, easily, against the corner of the sofa, her hands crossed in her lap. As he entered it seemed to him that she was studying his face.
“I was so anxious about aunt,” she said. “I went out to the stairs thinking I heard her come in. Do you know, it isn’t the Belt Line only; she goes to a mission—a boy’s mission. She has taken the greatest interest in it; all the teachers have gone away for the summer. It is in an out-of-the-way part of the city, and it worries me.”
Archibald hesitated a moment, then he said: