Bob growled beneath his breath. He was handsome enough certainly for a matinee hero. He was tall and lithe and had such clean-cut features. The temperamental young thing regarded him with thrilling approval. He entirely realized her ideal of a social burglar. It seemed almost too good to be true.
“I knew you were different from other men,” she said. “Something told me from the very first; perhaps it was the way you tangoed. I expected you would ask me to trot, but you didn’t.” Reprovingly. “Suppose you were otherwise engaged?” Glancing toward the brooch.
“Not the way you think!” said Bob gloomily, looking more striking than ever in that melancholy pose. It seemed to harmonize with a crime-stained career.
“Of course,” murmured Dolly, “it was you who got Mrs. Templeton Blenfield’s wonderful emeralds?”
“It was not,” answered Bob curtly.
“You were at that costume ball where she lost them?”
“Suppose I was?” he snapped. Yes, snapped! There is a limit to human endurance.
“And you were at Mrs. Benton Briscoe’s when a tiara mysteriously disappeared?”
“Well, I’m hanged!” said Bob, staring at her.
“Oh, I hope not—that is, I hope you won’t be, some day,” answered Dolly. “Are you going to ‘fess up?’ You’d better. Maybe I won’t betray you—yet. Maybe I won’t at all, if you’re real nice.”