“Stick by,” the other insisted sport-lovingly. “You don’t know what may come of this. It may provide you the very club you’re looking for. Win her over to your side if you can. Why not? She might really fall for you. Then see what comes of it. You can’t be led into any especial trap with your eyes open.”
Gregory agreed to all this after a time. Besides, this very attractive girl was beginning to appeal to him in a very subtle way. He had never known a woman like this before—never even seen one. It was a very new and attractive game, of sorts. He began to spruce up and attempt to appear a little gallant himself. A daily report of his movements was being filed each morning, though. Every night he returned with Blount in his car, or on an early train. There was scarcely a chance for a compromising situation, and still there might be—who knows?
On other evenings, after the fashion of seaside hotel life, Gregory and Imogene grew a little more familiar. Gregory learned that she played and sang, and, listening to her, that she was of a warm and even sensuous disposition. She was much more sophisticated than she had seemed at first, as he could now see, fixing her lips in an odd inviting pout at times and looking alluringly at one and another, himself included. Both Blount and himself, once the novelty of the supposed secret attack had worn off, ventured to jest with her about it, or rather to hint vaguely as to her mission.
“Well, how goes the great game to-night?” Blount once asked her during her second or third week, coming up to where she and Gregory were sitting amid the throng on the general veranda, and eyeing her in a sophisticated or smilingly cynical way.
“What game?” She looked up in seemingly complete innocence.
“Oh, snaring the appointed victim. Isn’t that what all attractive young women do?”
“Are you referring to me?” she inquired with considerable hauteur and an air of injured innocence. “I’d have you know that I don’t have to snare any one, and particularly not a married man.” Her teeth gleamed maliciously.
Both Gregory and Blount were watching her closely.
“Oh, of course not. Not a married man, to be sure. And I wasn’t referring to you exactly—just life, you know, the game.”
“Yes, I know,” she replied sweetly. “I’m jesting, too.” Both Gregory and Blount laughed.