“Your knowledge of a method of egress does not warrant an extension of your visit to midnight, does it?” asked Mary laughingly.
“Considering the attractions presented, I think they do,” replied Quincy, banteringly.
She resumed her story.
“There was a man in the case, young, handsome, and wealthy. Just such a man as she should have married. They had planned an elopement to Europe. Not together. She was to go to Liverpool, he was to follow later to Paris, and there meet her. Quite ingenious, wasn't it? Our agent at Liverpool was called to locate her and prevent her inamorata from communicating with her, at the same time using his influence to induce her to return to Boston without meeting her lover. His powers of persuasion, I mean our agent's, must have been great, for she consented.
“A month later she attended a reception next door to the house from which she disappeared, and silenced the tongue of scandal by saying that she had been hastily summoned to the bedside of a sick friend, her chum at Wellesley, and had returned home only the day previous. Her last statement was true. Good detective work by a good detective, and a great, big white lie fooled her friends and acquaintances, but if I were her husband she would not lack attention or admiration in the future, and I would furnish it.”
“When I get married, I will bear your admonition in mind.”
“I have another admonition. If you meet Mr. Cass when you go down, be nice to him. Why, when you know him, he is a treasure. I can bear his inquisitiveness, for it shields me from others. This is my sanctuary, and Mr. Cass protects me from the literary wolves—the reporters. He thinks I am a writer because I have so many books, and, to him, an author is next to an angel. Was he rude to you? You must forgive him, for he is my Saint George who protects me from the Dragon.”
Quincy was mollified to a certain extent. “Do I look like a Dragon? If I am one, history came near being reversed, for at one time your Saint George's hold on life was frail.”
Late in the afternoon of the next day Quincy made another call on Mary. He had telephoned and learned that she was in her room. Mr. Cass was temporarily absent from his desk and Quincy went at once to the elevator.
“I axed Mr. Cass about his tongue,” said the elevator man.