“What can I do . . . what can I do?” she asked. “Everybody wants to help—you, Mr. Johnson, and, I’m sure, Mr. Elk. But he is impossible—Ray, I mean. It will be fighting a feather bed. It may seem absurd to you, so much fuss over Ray’s foolish escapade, but it means, oh, so much to us, father and me!”
Dick said nothing. It was too delicate a matter for an outsider to intrude upon. But the real delicacy of the situation was comprised in the boy’s riding companion. As though guessing his thoughts, she asked suddenly:
“Is she a nice girl—Miss Bassano? I mean, is she one whom Ray should know?”
“She is very charming,” he answered after a pause, and she noted the evasion and carried the subject no farther. Presently she turned the talk to her call on Ezra Maitland, and he heard her description without expressing surprise.
“He’s a rough diamond,” he said. “Elk knows something about him which he refuses to tell. Elk enjoys mystifying his chiefs even more than detecting criminals. But I’ve heard about Maitland from other sources.”
“Why does he wear gloves in the office?” she asked unexpectedly.
“Gloves—I didn’t know that,” he said, surprised. “Why shouldn’t he?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know . . . it was a silly idea, but I thought—it has only occurred to me since . . .”
He waited.