“How kind you are!” the girl held out her hand with a pretty impulsive gesture. “That’s just what I want; to think it over a little and decide whether I want to tell Mr Lane,—or whether I’d rather confide in a—a friend.”
“Of course you do,” was the hearty response. “And Lane, who has wide knowledge, is also a good friend. Consider carefully, and decide slowly. But depend on me to the last ditch, if I can be of help.”
Meantime Philip Barry was on his quest.
He had decided on straightforward measures, and, gaining an accurate description of the fur piece, had gone directly to the home of Ivy Hayes, whose picture, he knew, graced the Gleason apartment.
He found the young lady and obtained an interview without difficulty.
“Well?” she said, as she appeared before him.
He saw a slim young thing, who might have been any one of thousands of young girls one meets everywhere, in the street or on the streetcars.
Muffs of dark hair over her ears; hand-painted cheeks and lips; saucy, powdered nose, and a slender shape encased in a one-piece frock, both scant and short.
“Miss Hayes?” said Barry, bowing politely.
“The same. And you are——?”