“I’m always here. Come and have tea with me on Thursday.”
“Yes, I will. Thank you very much.”
Her face in the moonlight looked strangely softened. “Have you got a latchkey?”
“Yes. Good-night.”
Mrs. Harter held out her hand and he took it for an instant. It was a strong hand, unusually broad, and capable of transmitting in contact a faint, magnetic thrill.
“Good-night,” she repeated as she went up the three shallow steps that led up to the neat, mean little door, with its liver-colored paint and tarnished brass.
Captain Patch, on the pavement, watched the door open, saw the tall, square-shouldered figure for a moment against the light that hung in the narrow entrance, and then heard the slam of the door and saw, through the ground-glass fan-light, the light go out.
Then he turned down the road again, softly whistling to himself “The Bluebells of Scotland.”
Sallie Ambrey has not her mother’s intuition, nor, naturally, has she Mary’s experience. But she has great acumen, and—that rarest and most invaluable asset—a mind trained from babyhood to clear thinking.