"Just what—were you doing on Martha's Island to-night, Kaire?" he asked.
"What were you doing yourself?" quizzed Kaire.
"Do you trade your answer for mine?" smiled Bretton.
"Certainly!" said Kaire.
"I was there because Martha sent for me," said Bretton. "I thought she was in some sort of trouble. I had no idea it was about you and the dog. . . . You were a brick about the dog, 202 Kaire!" he brightened abruptly. "And I sha'n't soon forget it! But you can't have my daughter!"
Unflinching eye for unflinching eye, Sheridan Kaire answered the challenge.
"I most always look Martha up when I'm down this way," he confided informationally. "I knew Martha in Paris twelve years ago."
"And loved Martha in Paris twelve years ago?" murmured Bretton.
"Everybody loved Martha in Paris twelve years ago, you know!" shrugged Kaire.
"No, I didn't know," said Bretton. "I was in New Zealand about that time. It was at an insane asylum in Chicago that I first saw Martha."