"It is late. I know I shouldn't stay." His voice was as troubled as his eyes. "I'm sorry to keep Mrs. Mundy up, but I must talk to you tonight. Again I must ask you what to do."
CHAPTER XXIII
"It's pretty beastly in me to put this on you." Selwyn, who had taken his seat in a chair opposite mine, first leaned back, then forward, and, hands clasped between his knees, looked down upon the floor. "I've kept away from you lest I trouble you with what I have no right—"
"If you did not talk to me frankly I would be much more troubled." I drew the scarf about my shoulders a little closer. I knew what was coming. The thought of it chilled. "Is it about Harrie you are again worried?"
Selwyn nodded. "You knew he had left home? Knew he had taken a bachelor apartment downtown?"
"I heard it day before yesterday. Kitty told me. Billie is pretty upset about him. Being five years older and married, Billie is seeing life rather differently from the way Harrie takes it, and the latter's recklessness—"
Selwyn looked at me, then away. "The boy is beyond comprehension. I haven't seen him but once in nearly two weeks. Five days before Christmas he had his trunk and certain things sent down-town, and wrote me a note telling of the apartment he'd taken. I've been to see him several times, but he's never in and, I'm told, hasn't been in now for over a week. I've written him, made every inquiry likely to lead to information without exciting undue suspicion, and now, unless I go to the police—" Biting the ends of his close-cut mustache, Selwyn stopped abruptly.
"Does Mrs. Swink know he has left home?"
"If she doesn't, she'll know it to-morrow when she gets my answer to this." Taking a letter from his pocket, Selwyn threw it on the table behind me. "Later you can read that, if you've time to waste. I got it to-day. Harrie hasn't been to see Madeleine for over a week. Mrs. Swink wants to know why. Wants to know where he is. So do I."
"Didn't he dine with Mildred on Christmas day? I thought both of you were always there at Christmas."