"Why do you ask that?" she said.
He repeated the story he had prepared of a friend's demand, mentioning Gunther's name.
Mrs. Kildair rose as though reluctantly, motioning him to wait, and, going to her room, returned after a long moment with an address on a slip of paper.
"There, Teddy," she said, giving it to him. Her manner had completely changed. She was again the Rita Kildair who treated him en camarade. "You are disappointed in not working out an exciting mystery," she said, laughing. "Do you know, Teddy, I am quite surprised at you."
"How so?" he said warily.
"I should have thought by this time you would have engaged half the detectives in New York," she said, turning from him to arrange the cushions at her back. "And here you have done nothing."
Beecher was not deceived by the innocence of the interrogation.
In the last days his wits had been trained by contact with different feminine personalities. He understood that she wished to find out what he had done and assumed at once an attitude of boyish candor.
"It's not my fault, Rita," he said contritely. "You put me off—you remember."
"That's so," she said. She motioned to him with a little gesture of her fingers and indicated a chair at her side. "Come here, you great boy," she said, smiling. "You are furious at me, aren't you?"