Her big doll eyes rolled a double circuit of coquetry and slanted off with a suggestive glance at the massive doorway of the Hawker-Sponge mansion, one of the most aristocratically mortgaged dwellings in America.
“It is rather late for a call,” she gushed suddenly, “but I know mamma”–––
“Impossible!” cried Barnes. “That is––I beg your pardon––I should be charmed, but the fact is I was looking for a friend––I mean a policeman. Er––you haven’t seen a good looking policeman going by, have you, Miss Sybil?”
All the coquetry in Miss Hawker-Sponge’s eyes went into stony eclipse.
“You are looking for a policeman friend, Mr. Barnes?” she said icily, gathering up her skirts and beginning to back away. “I hope you find him.”
She gave him her back with the abruptness of a slap in the face.
In another moment he was again a lone wayfarer in the bleak night wilderness of out-of-doors Fifth avenue.
Indubitably he had committed a hideous breach of good manners and could never expect forgiveness from Miss Hawker-Sponge. She had really invited him into her home and he had preferred to hunt for a “policeman friend.” Yet the tragedy of it was so grotesquely funny that Whitney Barnes laughed, and in laughing dismissed Miss Hawker-Sponge from his mind.
He must find Travers Gladwin, and off he went at another burst of speed.