“I’m not joking,” he cried, “I’m in dead earnest.”
“If that’s the case,” she returned, rising, “I must ask you to get the papers regarding the ring.”
“They’ll be here at any moment,” he answered. “I’m sorry you don’t care to entertain my proposition, but it’s your business after all. By the way,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “there’s another little matter I’d like to take up with you while we’re waiting. Do you recall a George Bronson, the claim agent of the New York Burglar Insurance Company, the company which insured the jewels that were stolen from you?”
“I think I do,” she returned slowly, “but—”
“Well, that company has had a great deal of trouble with society women who have got money by pawning their jewels and then putting in a claim that they were stolen and so recovering from the company on the alleged loss.”
The girl looked at him, frowning. “Are you trying to insinuate that—”
“Certainly not,” Taylor purred amiably. “Why, no. I’m merely explaining that that’s what Bronson thought at first, but after investigating, he found out how absurd the idea was.”
“Naturally,” she said coldly.
She had come into the deputy-surveyor’s office with an agreeable curiosity regarding a present sent her from Paris. But the longer she stayed, the less certain did she feel concerning this hard-faced man opposite her, who had the strangest manner and made the most extraordinary propositions. What business was it of his that her jewels had been stolen?
“But there were some things he could not understand,” Taylor went on.