"It was so sweet of Nancy to ask me to come," she said. "I've never had half a chance to chat with you before, though we met last year at a particularly stupid reception or something. This is so much more home-y, isn't it?" She dropped into smalltalk, rippling and charming, while Nancy poured the tea, and when Mr. Meredith presently arrived she presented him.
"Our District Attorney," she announced. "The Terror of the Lawless!"
"Now don't tell me I look a terror!" said he, beseechingly to Echo. "I'm a most mild-mannered man in private life, am I not, Mrs. Moncure?"
"I'm not sure yet whether I can give you a character," she answered. "I haven't seen this year's subscription-list to my pet charity."
"Blackmail!" the other asserted indignantly. "I'll subpoena you all as witnesses. And this is how I am treated for protecting you from criminality!"
"I like that!" exclaimed Nancy wickedly. "When burglars hide in our alcoves and jump out and shoot us when we're not looking! Poor Mr. Craig! I think you ought to be impeached, or impounded, or whatever they call it."
He laughed. "You know of the Craig affair, of course, Miss Allen," he said, turning.
Echo was glad for the touch of rouge on her cheeks. "Yes," she answered. "Oh, yes." Her gaze was on the basket of tulips on the tea-table, but she was really seeing Craig's smouldering black eyes—the lowering brows—the ruthless clamped lips—as she had seen his face in that moment of revealment in his study.
"The trial of the man who shot him opened to-day," continued Meredith. He looked again at Nancy. "It's up to the police to prevent burglaries, you see. My part comes after the burglars are caught. I point the moral—as a deterrent to others still at large."
"I hope, then," said Mrs. Moncure, "that the moral will be well pointed in this case. I didn't sleep for a week after it happened."