Mr. Morton puckered his lips into a queer smile. “Well, I’m surprised for once in my life—agreeably surprised. I didn’t suppose John had any useful accomplishments.”
Betty smiled engagingly. “Well, as long as you didn’t know about this one, don’t you suppose he has lots of others that you don’t know about, either?”
Mr. Morton laughed good-naturedly. “So you think I’m inclined to look on the dark side of things, do you, Miss B. A.? Well, I’ll write the boy to-night, after I’ve scalped those two railroad presidents, and tell him that I hear good accounts of him. I say, here we are at Dinard, and actually there’s my chauffeur waiting for me. Waited because it was the easiest thing to do, I suppose. Now you must let me take you to your friends, only you’ll have to ask the way, because I can’t.”
As Betty waved him a good-bye from the steps of the Casino she thought sadly of a great many things she might have said about John and hadn’t. “It’s so difficult when you’ve been confided in and have to remember what you mustn’t tell,” she thought. “Oh, dear, I meant to explain about Mr. Blake and what I told him. I forgot that too. I hope Mr. Morton won’t forget to write the letter to his son.”
Her eyes followed Mr. Morton’s big red car as it turned a corner, and there, walking briskly toward her, his eyes absently fixed on the ground, his cynical expression even more pronounced than usual, was Mr. Richard Blake himself.
CHAPTER XIII
A “NEAR-ADVENTURE”
Just as Betty discovered Mr. Blake he looked up and discovered her.
“How do you do?” he inquired gaily, striding across the street and up the steps to shake hands. “I’m extra glad to see you because I regard your appearance as a good omen. You’ve got another scoop up your sleeve for me, now haven’t you?”
“Do you mean that you haven’t found Mr. Morton yet?” demanded Betty, dispensing with formal greetings in her haste to explain Mr. Morton’s whereabouts. “Why, you just met him, Mr. Blake. He went around that corner just now in his car.”
“The mischief he did!” Mr. Blake turned and surveyed the corner ruefully. “I was thinking of somebody—something else. I didn’t know a car passed me. I say, I suppose you haven’t any idea where he was going?”