"Oh, he has some qualities, I admit," added Morris. "The most important one is a fine tenor voice. He is a professional singer. That interested Grace in the beginning. Now she is obsessed by him. She has lost her head. Evidently he's in town to-night—you heard my mother say that envelope was addressed in his handwriting. They're together somewhere, and Heaven only knows what they're hatching up."
I resented that at first. Then it disturbed me. Perhaps they were hatching up something.
"I'm sorry to bore you with all this," Mr. Morris apologized, "but Grace seems to have dragged you into it. She and Dillon—that's the fellow's name—have been trying to bring us 'round to their marriage. Lately they've about given up hope of that. Now I believe Grace is capable of eloping with him. Of course, as you say, we can't control her, but I've been looking up his record, and it's mighty bad. If I could show her proofs of what I know is true, she would throw him over. With a little more time I can get them. I expect them this week. But if in the mean time—to-night—"
He broke off suddenly, stood up, and began to stride about the room.
I rose. "I haven't any idea what she intends to do," I told him, truthfully. "And I can't tell you where she is. But I'll do what I can. I'll try to find her, and tell her what you say." I turned to his mother. "Good night," I said. "I'll go at once."
They looked at each other, then at me. There was something fine in the way their heads went up, in the quiet dignity with which they both bade me good-by. It was plain that they were hurt, that they had little hope that I could do anything; but they would not continue to humiliate themselves by confidences or appeals to one who stood outside the circle of anxiety which fate had drawn around them.
Arrived at the Lafayette, I went patiently from room to room of the big French restaurant, glancing in at each door for the couple I sought. It was not long before I found them. They were in a corner in one of the smallest of the side rooms—one which held only four or five tables. Grace Morris's back was toward me as I entered the room, but her escort faced me, and I had a moment in which to look him over. He was a thin, reedy person, about thirty years old, in immaculate evening dress, with a lock of dry hair falling over a pale and narrow brow, and with hollow, hectic eyes that burned into those of his companion as he leaned over the table, facing her. They were talking in very low tones, and so earnestly that neither noticed me until I drew out a third chair at the table and quietly dropped into it. Both started violently. The man stared; Miss Morris caught my arm.
"What happened?" she asked, quickly. "Mother didn't get that letter?"
"No," I said. "No one saw it. It's burned."
She relaxed in her chair, with a laugh of relief.