"Rita! You said you enjoyed that excursion!" exclaimed Ogilvy, with pathos.
"I said it to flatter that enormous vanity of yours, Sam. I had a perfectly wretched time."
"What sort of a time did you have last evening?" inquired Neville, turning from the picture.
"Horrid. Everybody ate too much, and Valerie spooned with a new man—I don't remember his name. She went out in a canoe with him and they sang 'She kissed him on the gangplank when the boat moved out.'"
Neville, silent, turned to the picture once more. In a low rapid voice he indicated to Ogilvy where matters might be differently treated, stepped back a few paces, nodded decisively, and turned again to Rita:
"I've been waiting for Miss West," he said. "Have you any reason to think that she might not keep her appointment this morning?"
"She had a headache when we got home," said Rita. "She stayed with me last night. I left her asleep. Why don't you ring her up. You know my number."
"All right," said Neville, shortly, and went out.
When he first tried to ring her up the wire was busy. It was a party wire, yet a curious uneasiness set him pacing the studio, smoking, brows knitted, until he decided it was time to try again.
This time he recognised her distant voice: "Hello—hello! Is that you,
Mr. Neville?"