IX
THE BLUFF THAT FAILED
"You must tell me!" Beverley insisted. "Tell me at once!"
"While Mr. O'Reilly is here with you, Miss Riley without the 'O', will be at his hotel, in his room, helping herself to his—I mean your—papers."
"My child, you're mad!" Beverley gasped.
"Not so mad as he'll be when he finds out," crowed the girl. "Hurray! The whole business is settling itself in my head. The one trouble is Mr. Sands. The rest will be all right. Think what to do about him, Angel; think hard!"
Beverley thought until her brain whirled.
"I might suggest Roger's dining at his club," she said. "But how I should hate to do that! He's vexed already. He has a right to be! This afternoon he gave me a wonderful present, a rope of pearls that belonged to a Queen. It must have cost a quarter of a million! I hardly stopped to thank him, I was in such frantic haste to get the envelope to you. The rope caught in the key of a drawer; the string broke, and a lot of pearls ran all over the carpet. I didn't wait to pick them up. I ran down to you, and I was gone so long Roger went to my room to look for me. I came back and found him picking up pearls. I felt my excuses did more harm than good. Roger pretended that he had an engagement. I saw by his face he wanted to walk off his anger in the fresh air. If he does walk it off—if he comes back ready to make up, and I send him away again, perhaps that will finish it! Things may never be the same between us any more!"
"He was angry because you didn't seem to care enough for his present," said Clo. "But if you can get him out of the house for an hour or so, and at the same time prove that you adore the pearls; how does that plan strike you?"
"How could I do both?"