K. (A Crime Thriller Novel). Mary Roberts Rinehart

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      “Perfectly. How stupid it must be for you!”

      “I'm doing very well. The maid will soon be ready. What shall I order for supper?”

      “Anything. I'm starving.”

      Whatever visions K. Le Moyne may have had of a chill or of a feverish cold were dispelled by that.

      “The moon has arrived, as per specifications. Shall we eat on the terrace?”

      “I have never eaten on a terrace in my life. I'd love it.”

      “I think your shoes have shrunk.”

      “Flatterer!” She laughed. “Go away and order supper. And I can see fresh lettuce. Shall we have a salad?”

      K. Le Moyne assured her through the door that he would order a salad, and prepared to descend.

      But he stood for a moment in front of the closed door, for the mere sound of her moving, beyond it. Things had gone very far with the Pages' roomer that day in the country; not so far as they were to go, but far enough to let him see on the brink of what misery he stood.

      He could not go away. He had promised her to stay: he was needed. He thought he could have endured seeing her marry Joe, had she cared for the boy. That way, at least, lay safety for her. The boy had fidelity and devotion written large over him. But this new complication—her romantic interest in Wilson, the surgeon's reciprocal interest in her, with what he knew of the man—made him quail.

      From the top of the narrow staircase to the foot, and he had lived a year's torment! At the foot, however, he was startled out of his reverie. Joe Drummond stood there waiting for him, his blue eyes recklessly alight.

      “You—you dog!” said Joe.

      There were people in the hotel parlor. Le Moyne took the frenzied boy by the elbow and led him past the door to the empty porch.

      “Now,” he said, “if you will keep your voice down, I'll listen to what you have to say.”

      “You know what I've got to say.”

      This failing to draw from K. Le Moyne anything but his steady glance, Joe jerked his arm free, and clenched his fist.

      “What did you bring her out here for?”

      “I do not know that I owe you any explanation, but I am willing to give you one. I brought her out here for a trolley ride and a picnic luncheon. Incidentally we brought the ground squirrel out and set him free.”

      He was sorry for the boy. Life not having been all beer and skittles to him, he knew that Joe was suffering, and was marvelously patient with him.

      “Where is she now?”

      “She had the misfortune to fall in the river. She is upstairs.” And, seeing the light of unbelief in Joe's eyes: “If you care to make a tour of investigation, you will find that I am entirely truthful. In the laundry a maid—”

      “She is engaged to me”—doggedly. “Everybody in the neighborhood knows it; and yet you bring her out here for a picnic! It's—it's damned rotten treatment.”

      His fist had unclenched. Before K. Le Moyne's eyes his own fell. He felt suddenly young and futile; his just rage turned to blustering in his ears.

      “Now, be honest with yourself. Is there really an engagement?”

      “Yes,” doggedly.

      “Even in that case, isn't it rather arrogant to say that—that the young lady in question can accept no ordinary friendly attentions from another man?”

      Utter astonishment left Joe almost speechless. The Street, of course, regarded an engagement as a setting aside of the affianced couple, an isolation of two, than which marriage itself was not more a solitude a deux. After a moment:—

      “I don't know where you came from,” he said, “but around here decent men cut out when a girl's engaged.”

      “I see!”

      “What's more, what do we know about you? Who are you, anyhow? I've looked you up. Even at your office they don't know anything. You may be all right, but how do I know it? And, even if you are, renting a room in the Page house doesn't entitle you to interfere with the family. You get her into trouble and I'll kill you!”

      It took courage, that speech, with K. Le Moyne towering five inches above him and growing a little white about the lips.

      “Are you going to say all these things to Sidney?”

      “Does she allow you to call her Sidney?”

      “Are you?”

      “I am. And I am going to find out why you were upstairs just now.”

      Perhaps never in his twenty-two years had young Drummond been so near a thrashing. Fury that he was ashamed of shook Le Moyne. For very fear of himself, he thrust his hands in the pockets of his Norfolk coat.

      “Very well,” he said. “You go to her with just one of these ugly insinuations, and I'll take mighty good care that you are sorry for it. I don't care to threaten. You're younger than I am, and lighter. But if you are going to behave like a bad child, you deserve a licking, and I'll give it to you.”

      An overflow from the parlor poured out on the porch. Le Moyne had got himself in hand somewhat. He was still angry, but the look in Joe's eyes startled him. He put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

      “You're wrong, old man,” he said. “You're insulting the girl you care for by the things you are thinking. And, if it's any comfort to you, I have no intention of interfering in any way. You can count me out. It's between you and her.” Joe picked his straw hat from a chair and stood turning it in his hands.

      “Even if you don't care for her, how do I know she isn't crazy about you?”

      “My word of honor, she isn't.”

      “She sends you notes to McKees'.”

      “Just to clear the air, I'll show it to you. It's no breach of confidence. It's about the hospital.”

      Into the breast pocket of his coat he dived and brought up a wallet. The wallet had had a name on it in gilt letters that had been carefully scraped off. But Joe did not wait to see the note.

      “Oh, damn the hospital!” he said—and went swiftly down the steps and into the gathering twilight of the June night.

      It was only when he reached the street-car, and sat huddled in a corner, that he remembered something.

      Only about the hospital—but Le Moyne had kept the note, treasured it! Joe was not subtle, not even clever; but he was a lover, and he knew the ways of love. The Pages' roomer was in love with Sidney whether he knew it or not.

      Chapter VII

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