The match flared up and he had conveyed it halfway to the weed between his lips when suddenly the motion was arrested, and he stared downward with widening eyes. For an instant he could scarcely believe his senses. Before him lay a letter addressed to the very girl whose charms had so smitten him the night before, and on whom he expected to call within fifteen minutes.
There was no doubt about it. “Miss Janet Harting,” written in a strong, masculine hand, stared up at him like a basilisk. Some one in this very hotel was corresponding with her—some one who did not know that she had arrived at Ashland the night before; for the address was a New England town.
“Kingsbridge!” The word came hissing through his clenched teeth as he remembered suddenly that this was the name of the team on which Lefty Locke had pitched during the past summer.
The forgotten match burned his fingers, and he flung it to the floor. A second later, however, he reached over to where a box of them lay, and struck one, leaning close against the desk as he did so. When he moved away, the cigarette alight, his face was still slightly flushed, but his expression was once more composed. The letter had disappeared.
Once in the street, he hurried along, scarcely able to restrain his impatience. Twice he hesitated by a lighted window, but each time the place seemed too public for his purpose. At last he stopped before a little store on a corner, glanced swiftly and suspiciously around, and drew the letter from his pocket.
For a moment he stood scowling at the superscription before he ripped the envelope open. The frown deepened as he noticed the length of the inclosure, and then, with narrowed eyes, he sought the signature.
“Hazelton!” he muttered hoarsely. “I knew it!”
Rapidly, with now and then a nervous glance around, his eyes flew over the closely filled pages. The letter had evidently been written by one very good friend to another. There was little in it which any one might not have read, yet its very tone, with those references to past experiences together, to mutual friends, to hopes and fears and interests held in common, sent Bert Elgin off into a spasm of rage. He had plumed himself on having, with great dexterity and presence of mind, obtained the inside track with quite the most fascinating girl that he had ever seen, only to discover that the man he hated with every fiber of his being seemed to have the inside track.
“Confound him!” he cried, crushing the letter between his fingers, “I can’t seem to get away from him.”
For a moment he stood there hesitating, his fingers busy tearing the purloined letter into shreds. Then he turned the corner, and began to walk hurriedly toward High Street.