"I'll see to it. Your sort doesn't go begging."
Broderick clipped his cigar and watched her thin profile for a moment without speaking.
He noticed for the first time that she had lost the little flesh that formerly had covered her small bones, and that the pink stained the pale ivory of her cheeks only when conversation excited her. But if anything she was prettier—no, more attractive—than ever, for there was more depth in her face, which in spite of its subtle suggestions, had seemed to his critical masculine taste to be too eager, too prone to pour out her personality without reserve when the brain lighted up. Now there was a slight droop of the eyelids which might mean fatigue, but gave length and mystery to the strange olive eyes. Her pink mouth, with its short upper lip, was too small for his taste, but the modelling of her features in general seemed to him more cleanly defined, and the sweep of jaw, almost as keen as a blade, must have delighted her own artist soul. She was rather diminutive (to her sorrow), but the long lines she cultivated in her house gowns made her figure very alluring, and the limp and awkward grace of fashion singularly became her. She wore to-night a "butterfly" gown of georgette (finding, as ever, admirable effects in cotton since she could not afford the costly fabrics), the colour of the American beauty rose, and a narrow band of olive velvet around her thin ivory-white neck. For the moment of her absorption, as she stared into the coals, her attitude would have been one of complete repose had it not been for her restless hands. Broderick noticed, too, that there were darkened hollows under her eyes. "Poor kid," he thought. "She's been through it, all right, and put up a stiff fight. But what a pity."
As he struck a match she rose, and, opening a drawer in the table, took out a box of Russian cigarettes. "I keep these here," she announced, "because I don't want to shock mother; and I seldom indulge these days in expensive habits. But I shall celebrate and smoke all evening. It is jolly to have you like this again, Jimmy. I heard you were engaged. Is it true? You would seem to have deserted every one else."
Mr. Broderick coloured and looked as sheepish as a highly sophisticated star reporter may. "Well, not quite," he admitted. "It's been heavy running, and I don't have all the time there is on my hands. But—I hope—well, I think now it'll be pretty plain sailing—"
"Good, Jimmy, good!"
For a moment he, too, gazed into the coals, his eyes softening; then once more he banished the dainty image evoked; no nonsense for him in Elsinore, with the Balfame tangle to unravel to the glory of the New York News.
"Alys," he said, stretching out his long legs and looking innocent and comfortable, "I want to have a confidential talk with you about Mrs. Balfame." He paused and then looked her straight in the eyes as he launched his bolt. "I have come to the conclusion that she shot him—"
"Jim Broderick!" Alys sprang to her feet, her eyes wide and full of angry light. "Oh, you newspaper men!—How utterly abominable!"