“May I wheel your bicycle along?” he requested in a rather worldly way.
And she surrendered it to him—not because she subscribed, of course, in even the faintest degree, to any of the old sex superstitions, but simply because Elsa was so splendidly emancipated that she could be unquestionably glad to rid herself of an encumbrance when possible, with no thought about it one way or another. Otherwise her surrendering it must have seemed a faint contradiction. So Jerome took charge of the bicycle, and she walked beside him with free, full stride, while he harked back into the realm of ancient history and told her, discreetly and with ever an effect of budding cynicism, the thrilling tale of the kidnapping—or rather, his accidental departure—in the first place, and something of his adventurous life after that. She appeared very much interested. And it seemed so good having some one entirely outside his now largely harrowing association to whom he could talk, that Jerome found himself looking upon Elsa Utterbourne as really an old friend. He did not mention Lili, and left uncommunicated the heartache connected with the loss of his tiny son at sea. It seemed almost incredible—almost like a strange illusion—that all this could have happened to him since the day in San Francisco when Elsa Utterbourne had come along to contemplate, without entirely knowing it, his sense of forlornness and pique.
“Do you know where Stella is now, by the way?” he asked casually.
Elsa looked at him in a somewhat sidewise fashion. “I rather thought you’d be able to give me a little news of her.”
“No, I’ve not heard a word since she went away on her honeymoon.”
“Neither have I, nor has any one else, so far as I know.”
“Strange. You’d think the earth had swallowed them up!”
“Yes, wouldn’t you?”
“But your father took them off in the first place—he must have some idea, at least, where they are.”
“Oh, the Captain knows exactly.”