CHAPTER VII
THE GRAY FRIAR
So confident was Elaine that Kennedy was still alive that she would not admit to herself what to the rest of us seemed obvious.
She even refused to accept Aunt Josephine's hints and decided to give a masquerade ball which she had planned as the last event of the season before she closed the Dodge town house and opened her country house on the shore of Connecticut.
It was shortly after the strange appearance of the fussy old gentleman that I dropped in one afternoon to find Elaine addressing invitations, while Aunt Josephine helped her. As we chatted, I picked up one from the pile and mechanically contemplated the address:
"M. Del Mar, Hotel La Coste, New York City."
"I don't like that fellow," I remarked, shaking my head dubiously.
"Oh, you're—jealous, Walter," laughed Elaine, taking the envelope away from me and piling it again with the others.
Thus it was that in the morning's mail, Del Mar, along with the rest of us, received a neatly engraved little invitation:
Miss Elaine Dodge requests the pleasure of your presence at the masquerade ball to be given at her residence on Friday evening June 1st.