"Your friend, Mr. Dorning—is he married?" she asked carelessly.
"No. He takes little interest in girls." She accepted a cigarette, and he held the match for her. Lighting his own, he wondered swiftly if such a glamorous lady would consider the quiet John Dorning worth trying her charms upon. "I am expecting Mr. Dorning here at any moment," he offered. It would be more amusing than anything else to see her focus her alluring artillery upon his friend, he decided. He had every confidence that she would find John impregnable.
"I shall be interested to meet a New York millionaire who is not interested in girls," she said. Was there a challenge in her remark? Rodrigo wondered. He was still considering the question when John Dorning turned the key and walked hurriedly into the room, stopping at the sight of the visitor.
Rodrigo introduced them.
"I had expected to meet my aunt, Mrs. Palmer, here, but she has not arrived," Elise explained. "Of course I am leaving at once. I was just saying good-bye to Count Torriani."
Astonishment and a tribute to her cleverness were written upon Rodrigo's face. Her whole voice and manner had changed suddenly from those of a virile sophisticated woman to a demure clinging vine, humbly asking John not to misunderstand her. And she was boldly counting upon Rodrigo for an ally. She was a superb actress. For the first time since their acquaintance, Rodrigo saw John Dorning's face light up with interest toward a woman other than his sister or Mary Drake.
"I've just been admiring your perfectly wonderful place," she said naïvely to John, flattering admiration in her eyes. "You have furnished it so exquisitely. I am such a novice in the arts. You must let me come to your galleries some day and have you enlighten me."
To Rodrigo there was something uncanny and alarming in the way John hung upon her words, stared at her. It was as if she had a different method for fascinating every man she met, as if she had instinctively sensed what no woman had hitherto discovered—a way to interest John Dorning.
"I'd be tickled to death to have you visit our shop," Dorning floundered.
"I've been fascinated by what Count Torriani has told me about it," she smiled gravely. "And I'm especially interested to meet the owner of it all. And now, really, I must go."