“Please!” implored Shelby. “Why, I sent for her only to tell her that she must keep away. Winifred!”
Winifred had turned and was running up the steps. Instead of waiting, as he had done with Paquita, Shelby took the steps two at a time. A moment later he was by her side.
We could not hear what he said as he reached her, but she took no pains to modulate her own voice.
“No—no!” she exclaimed, angrily, choking back a sob. “No—leave me. Don’t speak to me. Take your little dancer, I say!”
A moment later she had come into the circle of light from the Casino. Pursuit meant only a scene.
At the float at the other end of the pier bobbed one of the tenders of the Sybarite. Shelby turned deliberately and called, and a moment later his man ran up the dock.
“I’m not going to go out to the yacht to-night,” he ordered. “I shall sleep at the Lodge. Tell Mito, and come ashore with my things.”
Then he turned, avoiding the Casino, and walked slowly up to the Harbor House, as we followed at a distance.
I wondered if he might be planning something.