“I beg your pardon,” said the hammer-thrower deferentially, and in a very low tone, “but did you call out?”
“Yes, I thought I heard some one at my door.”
Bob hardly breathed. Would the hammer-thrower hale him forth? Would he toss him—or try to—right out into the hall at Gee-gee’s feet?
“I—I don’t see any one,” said the hammer-thrower hesitatingly, and still in a very low tone. His hesitation, however, told Bob he had considered or was still considering that forcible policy.
“I certainly thought I did hear some one,” observed Gee-gee, matching the other’s tones. His voice seemed to imply that it might be as well not to arouse any others of the household and Gee-gee involuntarily fell in with the suggestion.
“You—” Again, however, that awful hesitation! The hammer-thrower had no reason to like Bob, for did he not know that young gentleman had the presumption to adore Miss Gerald? Still the apparently more successful suitor for Gwendoline’s hand had a sportsmanlike instinct. He’d been brought up to be conscientious. He had been educated to be gentlemanly and considerate. Perhaps he was asking himself now if it might not be more sportsmanlike not to denounce Bob, then and there, but to give him, at least, a chance to explain? “You—you must be mistaken,” said the hammer-thrower, after a pause, in a low tense whisper.
“You’re sure it wasn’t you?” murmured Gee-gee softly but suspiciously and eying the other’s open and trustworthy countenance.
“I?” For a moment Bob thought now, indeed, had come the time to eject him, but—“Is that a reasonable conjecture?” the other murmured back.
Gee-gee pondered. “No, it ain’t,” she confessed, at length. Locked double-doors separated her room and the hammer-thrower’s. He would surely have used a skeleton key on those doors were he the guilty party, instead of going out into the hall to try to get in that way. “I got to thinking of that swell burglar who is going the rounds, before I went to sleep,” murmured Gee-gee, “and I may have been dreaming of him! Sorry to have disturbed you.” And Gee-gee closed her door very quietly.
She thought she must have been mistaken about the intruder. Anyhow, there wasn’t much excitement for an actress any more, in being robbed. That advertising stunt had been so overworked that even the provincial dramatic critics yawned and tossed the advance man’s little yarn of “jewels lost” right into an unsympathetic waste-basket. A scandal in high life was always more efficacious. No one ever got tired of scandals and city editors simply clamored for “more.” So Gee-gee composed herself for sleep again. She had reason to be satisfied, for had not she and Gid-up, who roomed with her, sat up late and arranged final details before retiring?