So intent was Jane on her study of the two men that her mother had to speak twice to her.
“Yes, mother,” she answered obediently, rising hastily as the hint of annoyance in her mother’s repeated remark brought her to a realization of having been addressed.
Letting her mother and Mrs. Starrett precede her in the doorway she paused to look back at the scene that had interested her so strongly. What could it mean? What was going on? How was she involved in it?
Her glance moved quickly from the watcher to the watched. The blond young man caught her eye. Amazedly, it seemed to her, he stopped right in the middle of what he was saying and sat there, his gaze fixed full on her. She let her eyes fall, abashed, and turned to hasten after her mother, but not so quickly did she turn but that she observed he had hastily seized his cup and appeared to be drinking to her, not so much impudently as admiringly.
CHAPTER III
“MR. FLECK”
Twice after the elevator had deposited her on the floor Jane had approached the door of Room 708, and twice she had walked timorously past it to the end of the hall, trying to muster up courage to enter. A visit to a man’s office in the business district was a novelty for her. On the few previous excursions of the sort she had made she always had been accompanied by one of her parents. She found herself wishing now that she had taken her father into her confidence and had asked him to go with her. Making shopping her excuse she had come down-town with Mr. Strong but had gotten off at Astor Place, and waited over for another train.
In her hand she held the card given to her by the black-mustached man the afternoon before. As she studied it now her curiosity came to the rescue of her fast-oozing courage. She must find out what it all meant, whatever the risk or peril that might confront her. Boldly she returned to Room 708 and opened the door. An office boy seated at a desk looked up inquiringly.
“Is Mr. Fleck in?” she inquired timidly.
“Who wishes to see him?”
“Just say there’s a lady wishes to speak to him,” she faltered, hesitating to give her name.