"Why, yes," I said. I had not seen them for over a month—an estrangement which I had not understood and which hurt me had fallen between us. "Of course I will," I added. "How's Bee?"
"She's been quite ill.... No, not dangerous, she's better now. Don't fail us, Rob. About eight o'clock.... That's fine. We—I need you. You've been a mighty good friend, letting us treat you the way we have—"
He hung up. With an ominous sense of danger hanging over me, I went out to see them at the hour he had named.
CHAPTER II
GROPING AT THE UNKNOWN
Wilton Grant was at that time just under forty. He was a tall, spare man of muscular build, lean but not powerful. His smooth-shaven face was large-featured, rough-hewn, with a shock of brown hair above it—hair turning grey at the temples. Beneath heavy brows his grey eyes were deep-set, somber. His ruddy-brown complexion, the obvious strength of his frame at a quick glance gave him an out-of-doors look; a woodsman cast in the mould of a gentleman. Yet there was something poetic about him as well; that wavy, unruly hair, the brooding quality of his eyes. When he spoke, those eyes frequently twinkled with the good nature characteristic of him. But in repose, the somberness was there, unmistakable; an unvoiced, brooding melancholy.
Yet there was nothing morbid about Wilton Grant. A wholesomeness, mental and physical, radiated from him. He was a jolly companion, a man of intellectuality and culture. His deep voice had a pleasing resonance suggestive of the public speaker. Normally rather silent, chary of speech, he could upon occasion draw fluently from a vocabulary of which many an orator would be proud.
He was a bachelor. I often wondered why, for he seemed of a type that would be immensely attractive to women. He did not avoid them; the pose of a woman-hater would have been abhorrent to him. Yet no woman to my knowledge had ever interested him, even mildly. Except his sister. They were orphans and she was his constant companion. They were both in fact, rather chary of friends; absorbed in their work, in which she took an active part. Their home and laboratory was an unpretentious frame cottage in a Westchester village of suburban New York. They lived quietly, modestly, with only one automobile, and no 'plane.
Will opened the door for me himself, smiling as he extended his big, hearty hand. "Well! You came, Rob? You're very forgiving—that's the mark of a true friend." He led me into the old-fashioned sitting room. "I'm not going to apologize—"
"Don't," I said. "I knew of course you had some reason—"