"Of what?" said the other casually, and Billy's cheeks grew suddenly warm.
"Of my middle name," said he, with steady composure. "If we are to do any team-work you will have to let it go at the William and the Hill."
"What team-work do you suggest?"
"Find out where she went yesterday. Find out where she is now. What worries me," he burst out, with ungovernable uneasiness, yet with a hint of humor at his own extravagant imaginings, "is her talking to that Turk fellow yesterday—that Captain Kerissen, I think she called him. She had told me the night before that he was going to get her some ball tickets or other, and I didn't think anything of it, but yesterday I thought he had his nerve to come and call upon her. You see, I passed through the hall and saw them talking. I went out to the veranda and after he had gone I came in again, but she was nowhere in sight. Then I went back to the veranda, and in a few moments she came out, in white with a rose on her hat, and went off in a car that was ready. Of course Kerissen wasn't in the car, and I haven't any proof of his connection with the thing, but he might easily have induced her to look at some mosque or other off the 'beaten track'——"
"But she returned, for later she sent that telegram from the station," Falconer argued.
Billy was silent. Then he burst out, "But all the same there is a mystery to this thing.... She—she's too confoundedly young and pretty to run around alone in this painted jade of a city."
"This city has law and order—much more of them than there are in your national hotbeds of robbery and murder."
"H'm—well, I don't hold any brief for Chicago—I suppose Chicago is the target—so I won't defend that. But I've heard stories."
"Queer ones, I should say."
"Devilish queer ones!... How about that young Monkton or Monkhouse who dropped out of things last winter?"