"She was away. I didn’t see her. The maid said you weren’t there, and certainly hadn’t been there overnight. Miss Barton knew nothing whatever about you. It looked as if the earth had opened and swallowed you up, so you can imagine my feelings when I caught sight of you at the dance. When I left you the night before, you hadn’t a friend in the city but this stenographer, or a cent——"
"You forget the ten dollars," she murmured demurely, her long lashes sweeping her cheeks as she played with a jeweled chain hanging from her neck.
"Not in the way you mean, perhaps," she supplemented. "And so you went from Mrs. Weston’s to the dance, and saw me there?"
"N-not directly. It was too early, and I was troubled and worried to know what had become of you. I drove around a little, and walked through the square——"
Her lids suddenly lifted, and she looked oddly at him.
"Madison Square?" she questioned swiftly.
He nodded. "Yes. I—er—just wanted to walk a little where it was quiet and I could think. Then I joined my friends, and drove with them to Sherry’s. I hadn’t been there half an hour before I saw you."
"I suppose it did seem a trifle odd," she remarked, glancing out of the window.
"Odd doesn’t quite express it. There you were in a wonderful gown with pearls and things, and talking to three or four men at once as if you’d known them all your life. Of course, I couldn’t believe my senses at first; and when at last I was sure, I—well, it was all so bewildering and impossible that I couldn’t seem to stay there."
"You mean you couldn’t stay because you thought I’d been deceiving you?" she said quietly.
"There didn’t seem to be any other explanation," he pleaded. "Next day I came to my senses, and knew that there must be some other reason. Of what it could be I hadn’t the most remote conception; but I knew that you weren’t the sort to make believe to that extent; and it was a big relief, I can tell you."
He hesitated a second, and bent forward slightly, his forehead wrinkled and his eyes fixed intently on her lovely face.
"Please forgive me," he begged, "and admit that there were extenuating circumstances."
The girl’s lids had drooped again, hiding the expression in her eyes, while the rest of her face told Barry nothing. He was just beginning to wonder whether she was very angry, when suddenly she threw back her head, and her lips parted in a peal of low laughter.