She bowed, evidently resenting the question.
“Yes, and it may interest you to know that he has something of the utmost importance to tell me to-night—he has actually seen my guardian. Don't you wish you could be there?”
She gave him a tantalizing smile, withdrawing her hand, and running up the stairs before he could answer. Over the railing of the landing she glanced down, and then disappeared.
Chapter XXVII. Miss Hope Suggests
No sooner had Miss Maclaire vanished than Keith's thoughts turned toward Hope Waite. She would need someone in her loneliness to take her mind from off her brother's death, and, besides, much had occurred of interest since the funeral, which he desired to talk over with her. Beyond even these considerations he was becoming aware of a pleasure in the girl's company altogether foreign to this mystery which they were endeavoring together to solve. He yearned to be with her, to look into her face, to mark how clearly the differing soul changed her from Christie Maclaire. He could not help but like the latter, yet somehow was conscious of totally different atmospheres surrounding the two. With one he could be flippant, careless, even deceitful, but the other aroused only the best that was in him, her own sincerity making him sincere.
Yet there was reluctance in his steps as he approached the door of “15,” a laggardness he could not explain, but which vanished swiftly enough at Hope's greeting, and the sudden smile with which she recognized him.
“I was sure you would come,” she declared frankly, “and I took an early lunch so as to be certain and be here. It has seemed a long time since.”
“And you might have even thought I had forgotten,” he answered, releasing her hand reluctantly, “if you could have looked into the dining-room since, instead of staring out of these windows.”
“Why? How forgotten?” her eyes opening wide in surprise.