Still, Craig, man-like, did not notice it at once. In fact he was too busy gazing about to see that neither Jennings, Marie, nor the duenna Aunt Josephine were visible. They were not and he quickly took the ring from his pocket. Without waiting, he showed it to Elaine. In fact, so sure had he been that everything was plain sailing, that he seemed to take it almost for granted. Under other circumstances, he would have been right. But not tonight.
Elaine very coolly admired the ring, as Craig might have eyed a specimen on a microscope slide. Still, he did not notice.
He took the ring, about to put it on her finger. Elaine drew away.
Concealment was not in her frank nature.
She picked up the two photographs.
"What have you to say about those?" she asked cuttingly.
Kennedy, quite surprised, took them and looked at them. Then he let them fall carelessly on the table and dropped into a chair, his head back in a burst of laughter.
"Why—that was what they put over on Walter," he said. "He called me up early this afternoon—told me he had discovered one of these poisoned kiss cases you have read about in the papers. Think of it—all that to pull a concealed camera! Such an elaborate business—just to get me where they could fake this thing. I suppose they've put some one up to saying she's engaged?"
Elaine was not so lightly affected. "But," she said severely, repressing her emotion, "I don't understand, MR. Kennedy, how scientific inquiry into 'the poisoned kiss' could necessitate this sort of thing."
She pointed at the photographs accusingly.
"But," he began, trying to explain.