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So far I haven't touched it. Isn't that pretty good for a start?" Colonel Mallett sat up straighter with a glimmer of interest in his eyes. Duane went on, checking off on his fingers: "I got fifteen hundred for Mrs. Varick's portrait, the same for Mrs. James Cray's, a thousand each for portraits of Carl and Friedrich Gumble; that makes five thousand.
Her demure expression was not convincing, and there rested a vague smile, or promise of a smile, upon lips which were perfectly moulded, and indeed the only strictly regular feature of a nevertheless bewitching face. She had slightly curling hair and the line of her neck and shoulder was most graceful and charming. Of one thing I was sure: She was glad to see visitors at Cray's Folly.
The 'County' do you know what I mean by the 'County? began by receiving him with open arms and ended by sending him to Coventry. His lavish style of entertainment they labelled 'swank' horrible word but very expressive! They concluded that they did not understand him, and of everything they don't understand they disapprove. So after the first month or so it became very lonely at Cray's Folly.
As a result, here was I at the open window, questioning the shadows to right and left of me, and every moment expecting to see Harley reappear. I wondered what discoveries he would make. It would not have surprised me to learn that there were lights in many windows of Cray's Folly to-night.
"You look pale to-night, my dear," she said. "All this bogey business is getting on your nerves, eh?" "Oh, not at all," declared the girl. "It is very mysterious and annoying, of course." "But M. Paul Harley will presently tell us what it is all about," concluded Madame. "Yes, I trust so. We want no Cuban devils here at Cray's Folly."
The analogy with an angel was accidental, Knox!" he added, smilingly. "In other words, it is all too obvious. Yet I have failed once, Knox, failed disastrously, and it may be that in my anxiety to justify myself I am seeking for subtlety where no subtlety exists." There were strangers about Cray's Folly and a sort of furtive activity, horribly suggestive.
Then, in spite of my direct questions, he leaves me to find out for myself that Colin Camber's property practically adjoins his own!" "Really! Does he reside so near as that?" "My dear fellow," cried Harley, "he lives at a place called the Guest House. You can see it from part of the grounds of Cray's Folly. We were looking at it to-day." "What! the house on the hillside?"
Once I had detected her watching Madame de Staemer with a look strangely like that of fear. Puffing contentedly at my cigar I proceeded to make a tour of the house. It was constructed irregularly. Practically the entire building was of gray stone, which created a depressing effect even in the blazing sunlight, lending Cray's Folly something of an austere aspect.
Don't you think she looks perfectly sweet, Mr. Knox?" Ignoring a look of entreaty from the blue-gray eyes: "Perfectly," I replied. "Oh, Mr. Knox," cried the girl, "why do you encourage her? She says embarrassing things like that every time I put on a new dress." Her reference to a new dress set me speculating again upon the apparent anomaly of her presence at Cray's Folly.
"It would be much more romantic if we put in a lock of Cray's hair." "I thought of that," quoth the donor, "but I knew very well that the first new friend you had, you would turn it out and put his in, just as both of you turned my photograph out of those pretty frames, and put in Prince Leopold after he had passed through the town. You are to wear these lockets."
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