"Is it possible?" Jerry cried gallantly. "I shouldn't have suspected that he was so young!"
"Nobody can mistake you when you wish to pay a compliment," she said, with a smile that had in it a tinge of satire. "But did you really see Gordon Wrenmarsh? I haven't heard of him for years. What is he doing? At one time he was a friend of Mr. Fairhew; they were in the same class at Harvard."
She showed a genuine interest, Jerry thought; and at any rate this seemed to him a good time to prepare Jack for the plan evolved between him and the archæologist, so he launched forth on the narrative of his visit to Pæstum. He did not particularize, but he did not hesitate to say that the archæologist had chanced upon a rich find which he was guarding in the hope of running it safely out of the country.
"Why shouldn't he take it out of the country if he's bought it?" Katrine asked, with an air of interest.
"The Italian law says he shan't," Jack answered, with a smile.
"Why, if it's his, he has a right to do what he pleases, I should think," she responded.
"But there's a law against carrying works of art out of the country."
"What a horrid, unjust law!" she protested. "If they were mine, I'd take them out; you may be sure of that."
"I'd help you," Jack assured her lightly.
Jerry was secretly so pleased at this passage that he endeavored to keep the conversation in the same line by inquiring of Mrs. Fairhew further particulars about the strange creature with whom he had made tryst.