"I don't believe the point that he was acting as escort to Lucia will be brought out at all," he said. "I noticed in the drug store that when 'Captain Ollory' asked Lloyd how in h-h-heaven he happened to be in the Ferris Wheel he merely answered that he went to balance one of the swings which apparently was not sufficiently weighted to be satisfactory. And the matter seemed to pass."
Lucia drew herself into a sitting posture. The nervous shock she had undergone showed in her pallor and the dark circles under her eyes. Her dainty lace blouse, with its elbow sleeves revealing her fair, beautifully proportioned arms, the knots of faint-hued ribbon, her delicately arranged hair, all seemed incongruous with the piteous aspect of her tearful eyes and the pathetic downward droop of her lips.
"I think that was very considerate of him, especially in view of the state of his wound—don't you, Aunt Dora? He might easily have overlooked that point."
"Or he might not have appreciated it," Mrs. Laniston assented.
"Yes, he would appreciate it," said Frank, wagging his wise head. "I tell you now, that fellow is as delicate-minded as any girl. He has got very popular here too—the town folks were fairly gushing over him in the drug store. If that rascal were caught they'd make him squeak, you bet your life. He would see sights."
Mr. Jardine was not an imaginative man, but before his mental vision was a dull night scene of dusky purple atmosphere, veined about with white lights, and hirpling away in the shadow was the figure of a grey-coated old man, suddenly turning over his shoulder a malignant young face with a grin of glistening white teeth.
Jardine gave an abrupt start, for it was as if this recollection had become visible to others, when Frank, still sitting in his pondering attitude, a hand on either knee, and his florid face bent down, said without preamble—"I wonder if any of you noticed this afternoon at the 'high-class concert' a fellow with an old whitey-grey coat who looked in the back like an old man and had a young face, if you could catch a glimpse of it under the flapping brim of an old white hat."
"Yes, indeed," cried Ruth excitedly. "When I said the scene was merely a by-play and the real romance was when the manager had fallen in love with the girl he had trained so beautifully, this man, who was sitting in front of us, turned and looked straight into my eyes as if he would deny it—as if he could destroy me for the suggestion."
"I noticed that too," said Lucia. "That is what made me remember him when I saw him again to-night—in the same old whitey-grey coat and flapping white hat. He was in the wheel with us—in a swing alone—just behind you and Mr. Jardine."
"Ladies—ladies—let me beg of you—I must insist that you do not pursue this line of thought!" Jardine admonished them. "You do not want to convince yourselves, that your consciousness may convince others——" he paused dumbfounded. He was himself advancing the matter. He was formulating their conclusion, inchoate as yet—he was putting it into systematic words.