Thus her mind ran, and all this time Erik Nord was studying her face.
“That man,” she finished rather lamely, “must have been clever.”
“Clever no end!
“Well, time to wander back.” He rose. “It’s been a pleasure to be with you. I’d like to know about America, the best of America.”
“Do you think I belong to the best?” she laughed.
“You seem rather real.” His smile was frank. “I don’t like all this face-paint and jazz, pretty girls smoking cigarets, and all that. Well, I’m old-fashioned, I suppose. In China we put paint on the temples and burn incense in ancient copper dragons, not between young ladies’ lips.” He laughed good-naturedly, then ushered her into the twilight of the passing day.
CHAPTER XII
THE DODGE-EMS
“They say,” Florence murmured to herself, as she left the Enchanted Island that night, “that murderers always return to the scene of their crimes. That long-eared Chinaman did not commit murder when he took that sky-walk of his, but if he didn’t commit suicide he may be back. Perhaps the Sky Ride holds for him some strange fascination. I wonder.”
She was still wondering when her feet had led her to the foot of the east tower of that spectacular Sky Way. She waited for an up-going car.
“I’d like to get him,” she told herself. “I must!” A fierce determination took possession of her. Erik Nord’s story had embedded itself deeply in her soul.