“Try me,” said Dunn.
“If I showed you,” Deede Dawson's voice sank to a whisper, “if I showed you a pretty girl for a wife—a fortune to win—what would you say?”
“Try me,” said Dunn again, and then, making his voice as low and hoarse as was Dunn's, he asked:
“Is it Clive?”
“Later—perhaps,” answered Deede Dawson. “There's some one else—first. Are you ready?”
“Try me,” said Dunn for the third time, and as he spoke his quick ear caught the faint sound of a retreating footstep, and he told himself that Ella must have lingered near and had perhaps heard all they said.
“Try me,” he said once more, speaking more loudly and clearly this time.
CHAPTER XIV. LOVE-MAKING AT NIGHT
Dunn went to his room that night with the feeling that a crisis was approaching. And he wished very greatly that he knew how much Ella had overheard of his talk with her stepfather, and what interpretation she had put upon it.