“So you are Mr. Vance,” she cooed. “I’ve often seen your name in Town Topics.”
Vance gave a shudder.
“And this is Mr. Van Dine,” he said sweetly, “—a mere attorney, who, thus far, has been denied the pages of that fashionable weekly.”
“Won’t you sit down?” (I am sure Miss La Fosse had spoken the line in a play: she made of the invitation an impressive ceremonial.) “I really don’t know why I should have received you. But I suppose you called on business. Perhaps you wish me to appear at a society bazaar, or something of the kind. But I’m so busy, Mr. Vance. You simply can’t imagine how occupied I am with my work. . . . I just love my work,” she added, with an ecstatic sigh.
“And I’m sure there are many thousands of others who love it, too,” returned Vance, in his best drawing-room manner. “But unfortunately I have no bazaar to be graced by your charming presence. I have come on a much more serious matter. . . . You were a very close friend of Miss Margaret Odell’s——”
The mention of the Canary’s name brought Miss La Fosse suddenly to her feet. Her ingratiating air of affected elegance had quickly disappeared. Her eyes flashed, and their lids drooped harshly. A sneer distorted the lines of her cupid’s-bow mouth, and she tossed her head angrily.
“Say, listen! Who do you think you are? I don’t know nothing, and I got nothing to say. So run along—you and your lawyer.”
But Vance made no move to obey. He took out his cigarette-case and carefully selected a Régie.
“Do you mind if I smoke?—And won’t you have one? I import them direct from my agent in Constantinople. They’re exquisitely blended.”
The girl snorted, and gave him a look of cold disdain. The doll-baby had become a virago.