“You see I’m not concealing her anywhere,” Miss Demorest challenged.

“Of course not.  We never suspected you, but we’re afraid something has happened to her.”

“Something has.”

“What?”

Adoree tossed her head.  “You’re paid to find out.”

“See here, I’m not always a newspaper man.  Try and forget that side of me for once.  Bob will drink himself to death, or do something equally foolish, if Lorelei doesn’t come back.  He’s repentant.  He’s in a terrible condition.  I really believe she can straighten him out if she’ll have patience, and you know he’s too good a man to lose.  He thinks she left him because he got drunk, but I’m sure there must have been some other reason.”

“I should say there was!  You want scandal?  I’ll give you some.”  Adoree’s eyes were flashing now.  “If he’s going to drown himself he ought to realize what he did and think it over when he comes up for the third time.  Have you any idea what that girl went through out there on Long Island?  Listen.”  She plumped herself down beside Pope and began to talk swiftly with an intensity of indignation that made her forgetful of her dishabille.  She was animated; she had an expressive, impulsive manner of using her hands when interested, and now she gesticulated violently.  She also squirmed, bounced, hitched, flounced; she seized Pope’s arm, she emphasized her points from time to time by a shake or by a dig of her white fingers.  When she had finished her story her shocked blue eyes interrogated his, and the critic roused himself with an effort.  He found that he was tightly holding the fingers of her right hand, but dropped them and cleared his throat.

“You say she’s staying here with you?”

“I didn’t say so, but she is.”

“Doesn’t she care for Bob any more?”

“Y-yes!  At first she was furious, but we’ve talked a good deal, and I think she does care—­away down underneath.  She may not know it herself, but she does, especially now that—­”

“What?” asked Pope, as Adoree hesitated and flushed.

“Nothing!  But she won’t go back.  She declares she won’t spoil her whole life for a drunken wretch like him, and she’s quite right, of course.”

“She’s quite wrong, of course!  Bob’s done pretty well for a man of his type, and he’s had a hard lesson.  After all, it’s a woman’s part to sacrifice—­she’s not happy unless she gives more than she gets.  You and I must bring them together.”

“How?”

Pope had been thinking while he talked, and now he sketched his plan eagerly.

“You are perfectly detestable and horrid,” she told him when he had finished, “but I suppose there must be some good in you.  Don’t think you argued me into this, however, for you didn’t.  There’s an altogether different reason why I want those two to make up.”  She laid her hand upon his arm again, and when Pope caught her meaning his sallow cheeks were glowing and his eyes as bright as hers.