“ ‘You’re quite a big party,’ I laughed, ‘and I thought I was coming for a quiet week-end.’
“ ‘We’ve got two or three more arriving to-night,’ she said. ‘At least I think so. One of them is a most elusive person.’ She was staring straight in front of her as she spoke, and for the moment she seemed to have forgotten my existence.
“ ‘Male or female—the elusive one?’ I asked lightly.
“ ‘A man,’ she answered abruptly, and changed the conversation.
“But being an old and wary bird, I read into her harmless remark a somewhat deeper significance than was perhaps justified, and it struck me very forcibly that if I were the man I would not be elusive in the circumstances. She surely was most amazingly pretty.”
“With great deductive ability,” murmured the Actor, as the Doctor paused to refill his pipe, “we place the elusive man as Jack Digby.”
“You go to blazes!” laughed the teller of the story. “I haven’t got to that yet. Of course you’re quite right—he was; though when I found it out a little later it came as a complete surprise to me. I’d almost forgotten his existence.
“It was her father who first mentioned his name. I was having a sherry and bitters with him in his study before going up to dress for dinner, and the conversation turned on the girl. I think I said how extraordinarily pretty I thought she was, and remarked that I supposed somebody would soon be walking off with her.
“Joe Maitland’s face clouded a little.
“ ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘both her mother and I have been expecting it for some time. A most charming man, and Sybil is in love with him, I’m sure. We all thought that he was in love with her,’ and then he exploded—‘damn it, it isn’t a question of thinking, I know he’s in love with her! And for some extraordinary reason he won’t tell her so. He’s kept away from her for the last two months, after having lived in her pocket. And he’s not the type that monkeys round and makes a girl fond of him for no reason. He’s coming here to-night, and——’