The girl looked at Harry Vincent. Her eyes moved slightly as she appeared to study him with a keen glance. Harry was fascinated.
He still continued to stare, wondering more than before why this amazing creature should have come, unattended, to such a place as the Pink Rat.
Admiration must have expressed itself in Harry’s glance, for the girl’s eyes met his, and she smiled slightly. Harry was gripped by a strange emotion.
Women had not interested him for many months. Before he had met The Shadow, Harry had been in love; but the girl whom he adored had married another man. Since then he had been woman-proof.
But now — the quickened beating of his heart told him that he had found a new love.
The girl’s eyes interested Harry. They held an expression that encouraged him. Somehow, he knew that his interest was reciprocated.
He felt that the girl was wondering why he was here — just as he had wondered why she had come to this place. They had something in common. Each seemed to know instinctively that the other was not a person of the underworld.
The girl turned away suddenly. She opened a hand bag, and began to look for something. She did not appear to be embarrassed, but Harry realized that she had sought to escape his fixed gaze.
He looked toward the corner of the room where the two men were engaged in conversation. But a moment later, he glanced back toward the girl, and smiled to himself. For he had detected her watching him from the corner of her eye.
Harry was hesitating between duty and desire. He had a mission here — to watch the man who had followed Stanley Berger. But he felt an irrepressible longing to meet the blond girl; to talk with her; to learn her name.