"The nurse says she is doing famously. She is sleeping now; but she woke up for food and is nearly normal. She did not ask for you," he added pointedly.
Beale flushed and laughed.
"My last attempt to be merry," he said. "I suppose that to-morrow she will be well."
"But not receiving visitors," Kitson was careful to warn him. "You will keep your mind off Oliva and keep your eye fixed on van Heerden if you are wise. No man can serve two masters."
Stanford Beale looked at his watch.
"It is the hour," he said oracularly, and got up.
"I'll leave this untidiness for your man to clear," said Kitson. "Where do you go now?"
"To see Hilda Glaum—if the fates are kind," said Beale. "I'm going to put up a bluff, believing that in her panic she will lead me into the lion's den with the idea of van Heerden making one mouthful of me. I've got to take that risk. If she is what I think she is, she'll lay a trap for me—I'll fall for it, but I'm going to get next to van Heerden to-night."
Kitson accompanied him to the door of the hotel.