The little excursion was purposeless, as had been many another in the same direction; but when he found himself opposite the stairway of the shabby building he wondered if he might not go up and ask Constance for a cup of tea. He was wise in his generation, and he had long since discovered that the way to Constance Elliott's heart lay through helpings accepted. With love abounding for any human soul at need, there were precious reserves of tenderness for those to whom she might minister.
Lansdale glanced up at the two lighted windows on the third floor and crossed the street. In the stair archway, which was dimly lighted by a single inefficient gas-jet, he stumbled upon a bit of by-play, in which the actors were a man and a woman leaning together across the stair-rail, and a barelegged boy spying upon the twain from the dimnesses beyond. The little tableau fell apart at the sound of the intruder's footsteps. The boy vanished mysteriously, the woman ran upstairs, and the man turned half angrily, as one faulted. It was Jeffard; and when he recognized Lansdale he spoke quickly, as if to forestall possible comment.
"Hello!—think of the devil and you'll hear the clatter of his hoofs. I was just about to go up to the print-shop to see if I could find you. Been to supper?"
"No; I was"—
Jeffard cut in again swiftly, with edgings streetward. "That's lucky; neither have I. Let's go up to the club."
Lansdale acceded rather reluctantly, since a cup of tea with Constance easily outweighed the grill-room prospect.
"I'll go with you, though I can't promise to play much of a knife and fork," he said. "I was just going up to ask Miss Elliott to give me a cup of tea."
They were turning the corner above the stranded apartment house before Jeffard returned the shuttle of speech.
"So the Elliotts live down there now, do they?"
Lansdale said "Yes," and began to rummage in recollection. Had Jeffard been on Constance Elliott's visiting list in the prehistoric time? It was probable that he had been,—with Dick Bartrow for his sponsor. But at this point recollection turned up the mental notes of a certain talk with Bartrow, in which the downright one had confessed his sins of omission Jeffardward. So Lansdale added a query to the affirmative.