“Well, he tries to,” admitted Evelyn, and a faint roguish dimple appeared in her cheek as a sudden recollection of a scene with Jim Palmer at the Chevy Chase Club brought a covert smile to her lips. “Mr. Palmer is my step-father’s most intimate friend, and so——”
“He favors the match; ah, I begin to see.” La Montagne straightened his slender figure to military erectness. “There is a motive then for Mr. Burnham’s animosity other than that suggested by our good friend, Madame Van Ness. But tell me, Evelyn,” and his tender voice caressed her name, “what is this I read in the newspapers of a dead man in your house?”
“I know no more about it than what you saw in the papers.” Evelyn’s blue eyes clouded. “It was a great shock to find him sitting there in the library—dead. Apparently the police are at as great a loss about the whole affair as I am.”
“I saw they had not decided the man’s identity.” The Frenchman paused and glanced doubtfully at Evelyn; he had been quick to observe her loss of color at mention of the tragedy and concluded with the intuitive sympathy of his nature that the subject distressed her, and the words which he had intended to say remained unspoken. “Let us discuss no more such gloomy matters. Will you not lunch with me at the Willard?”
Evelyn considered the invitation before she answered. “I wish I could accept,” she said, and her disappointment was evident. “But there is no use needlessly antagonizing mother. She is a great stickler for the conventions, and I know she would not permit me to lunch with you unchaperoned.”
He took out Marian’s package of papers and placed them in Evelyn’s lap.
“But where can we meet?” demanded La Montagne; a glance at the hangar had shown him an orderly advancing toward the car and he rightly divined that his presence was required by a brother officer. “Heart’s dearest, do not let it be long before I see you again.”
“I am dining to-night with Marian, why not come to her apartment this evening?”
“Excellent!” La Montagne nodded to the orderly who stood at salute beside the car. “I will be with the colonel at once,” he said addressing him and as the soldier moved away, he turned again to Evelyn and kissed her hand passionately before he sprang from the car. “Ah, I just remember—you will see Mrs. Van Ness before I do, therefore will you hand her these papers which I was so forgetful as to carry away in my pocket when I left her yesterday?” As he spoke he took out Marian’s package of papers and placed them in Evelyn’s lap.