The burglar chuckled grimly. "Coincidences multiply. It is odd. That harp, O'Hagan, was coming in with a can of beer while I was picking the lock, and caught me. He wanted to know if I'd missed my train for Greenfields, and I gave him my word of honor I had. Moreover, I'd mislaid my keys and had been ringing for him for the past ten minutes. He swallowed every word of it…. By the way, here's a glove of yours. You certainly managed to leave enough clues about to insure your being nabbed even by a New York detective."
He faced about, tossing her the glove, and with it so keen and penetrating a glance that her heart sank for fear that he had guessed her secret. But as he continued she regained confidence.
"I could teach you a thing or two," he suggested pleasantly. "You make about as many mistakes as the average beginner. And, on the other hand, you've got the majority beaten to a finish for 'cuteness. You're as quick as they make them."
She straightened up, uneasy, oppressed by a vague surmise as to whither this tended.
"Thank you," she said breathlessly, "but hadn't you better——"
"Plenty of time, my dear. Maitland has gone to Greenfields and we've several hours before us…. Look here, little woman, why don't you take a tumble to yourself, cut out all this nonsense, and look to your own interests?"
"I don't understand you," she faltered, "but if——"
"I'm talking about this Maitland affair. Cut it out and forget it. You're too good-looking and valuable to yourself to lose your head just all on account of a little moonlight flirtation with a good-looking millionaire. You don't suppose for an instant that there's anything in it for yours, do you? You're nothing to Maitland—just an incident; next time he meets you, the baby-stare for yours. You can thank your lucky stars he happened to have a reputation to sustain as a village cut-up, a gay, sad dog, always out for a good time and hang the expense!—otherwise he'd have handed you yours without a moment's hesitation. I'm not doing this up in tin-foil and tying a violet ribbon with tassels on it, but I'm handing it straight to you: something you don't want to forget…. You just sink your hooks in the fact that you're nothing to Maitland and that he's nothing to you, and never will be, and you won't lose anything—except illusions."
She remained quiescent for a little, hands twitching in her lap, torn by conflicting emotions—fear of and aversion for the man, amusement, chill horror bred of the knowledge that he was voicing the truth about her, the truth, at least, as he saw it, and—and as Maitland would see it.
"Illusions?" she echoed faintly, and raised her eyes to his with a pitiful attempt at a smile. "Oh, but I must have lost them, long ago; else I shouldn't be…."