The butler halted, thunderstruck. "Ye-es, s-sir?"
Eccles
"Turn round, Eccles; I want a look at you."
Eccles faced him unwillingly, with a stolid front but shifty eyes. Kirkwood glanced him up and down, grinning.
"Thank you, Eccles; I'll remember you now. You'll remember me, too, won't you? You're a bad actor, aren't you, Eccles?"
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir," mumbled the man unhappily; and took instant advantage of the implied permission to go.
Intensely diverted by the recollection of Eccles' abortive attempt to stop him at the door of Number 9, and wondering—now that he came to think of it—why, precisely, young Hallam had deemed it necessary to travel with a body-guard and adopt such furtive methods to enter into as well as to obtain what was asserted to be his own property, Kirkwood turned active attention to the lunch.
Thoughtfully he poured himself a cup of coffee, swallowing it hot and black as it came from the silver pot; then munched the sandwiches.
It was kindly thought of, this early morning repast; Mrs. Hallam seemed more and more a remarkable woman with each phase of her character that she chose to disclose. At odds with him, she yet took time to think of his creature needs!
What could be her motive,—not in feeding him, but in involving her name and fortune in an affair so strangely flavored?... This opened up a desert waste of barren speculation. "What's anybody's motive, who figures in this thundering dime-novel?" demanded the American, almost contemptuously. And—for the hundredth time—gave it up; the day should declare it, if so hap he lived to see that day: a distant one, he made no doubt. The only clear fact in his befogged and bemused mentality was that he was at once "broke" and in this business up to his ears. Well, he'd see it through; he'd nothing better to do, and—there was the girl: