“Facts,” snapped the little man. “The first is she’s going out expressly to find and marry this weak-will, this ne’er-do-well Henry Gunning.”
“Why? Is she engaged to him?” demanded Clement, with peculiar interest.
“Engaged to him. Good gad—rubbish. Sheer quixotery. This is the story: They were brought up together—boy and girl. He was an unpleasant, feckless cub. His people had estates next old Reys. Both of ’em went about as kids. There was a sort of calf love. Both of ’em had it mildly ... nothing else to do in the country for the young but to be calves. Then he did something idiotic, and he was shipped off to Canada. His guardians did it—parents dead then.”
“What was it?”
“Oh, general irritation with his spinelessness and low tastes, plus a crisis. They made use of that crisis. Matter of fact, he stole.”
“Stole! But could Miss Heloise have anything to do with a thief?”
“Oh, but a plausible thief,” snapped the little lawyer. “What he stole, he said, was his. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t, and he knew it. It was a picture, an Old Master, belonging to his family. Family had died up to its ears in debt—for which his own bad habits were mainly responsible. Everything had been sold to settle those debts. He knew that all right. But he stole that picture, sold it, and went on the spree with the proceeds. There you get the type of man he is in a nutshell.”
“That doesn’t explain Miss Reys’ attitude.”