Suddenly I realized that Kennedy was rising to greet some one approaching our table.  Turning, rising also, I went through all the miseries of the bashful lover.  It was Enid herself.

“I caught sight of you looking over the rail while I was dancing,” she told Kennedy, accepting a chair pulled around by the waiter.  “I knew you saw me.  Also I glanced up and found that you were perfectly well aware of the location of our table.  So”—­ engagingly—­“unsociable creature!  Why didn’t you come down and say ‘Hello!’ or ask me for a dance?”

“Perhaps I intended to a little later.”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, in mockery.  “You see, since Mecca won’t go to the pilgrim, the pilgrim has to come to Mecca.”

“Did you ever hear of Mohammed and the mountain, Miss Faye?” Kennedy asked.

“Of course!  That’s the regular expression.  But I agree with Barnum.  As he said, some people can be original some of the time and some people can be original all of the time, and I propose to be original always, like a baby with molasses.”

Kennedy laughed, for indeed she was irresistible.  Then she turned to me, placing one of her warm little hands upon mine.

“And Jamie!” she purred.  “Have you forgotten little Enid altogether?  Won’t—­won’t you come down and dance?”

“I—­I can’t!” I exploded, in agony.  “I don’t know how!” And I thought that I would never dare trust myself with her glistening shoulders clasped close to me, with her slim bare arm placed around my neck as I had watched it slip about the collar of Millard.

“Now that the pilgrim is at Mecca—­” Kennedy suggested, interrupting cruelly, as I thought.

“Oh!” In an instant I sensed that I was forgotten, and I was hurt.  “There’s something which came out this afternoon at the studio,” she began, “and I wonder if you know.  Larry—­that’s Mr. Millard—­assures me it is true, and—­and I think you ought to hear about it.  I—­I want to assist all I can in solving the mystery of Stella Lamar’s death, even though Stella’s unfortunate end has meant my opportunity.”

“What is it, Miss Faye?” Kennedy was studying her.

“It’s about Jack Gordon.  He’s been trying to hold up the company for fifteen hundred a week, which would double his salary—­ perhaps you’ve heard that?”

Kennedy nodded, although it was news to him.  “I’ve been thinking about Gordon,” he murmured.

“Anyway,” she went on, “it’s gone around that he’s desperately in need of money and that that is why he’s so insistent upon the increase.  It seems he owes everyone.  In particular he owes Phelps some huge sums and old Phelps is on his tail, hollering and raising Ned.  Phelps, you know, has uses for money himself just now.  You had heard?”

Again Kennedy evaded a direct answer.  “Money is fearfully tight, of course,” he remarked, encouraging her to continue.