"I see! I see!" exclaimed Old Hosie. "By George, it"s mighty clever!
Then what next?"
"I can"t see that far. But with Mr. Manning on the inside, our case is won."
Old Hosie leaned forward.
"It"s great! Great! If you"re not above shaking hands with a mere man----"
"Now don"t make fun of me," she cried, gripping the bony old palm.
"And while you"re quietly turning this little trick," he chuckled, "the Honourable Harrison Blake will be carefully watching every move of Elijah Stone, the best hippopotamus in the sleuth business, and be doing right smart of private snickering at the simplicity of womankind."
She flushed, but added soberly:
"Of course it"s only a plan, and it may not work at all."
They talked the scheme over in detail. At length, shortly before the hour at which the afternoon express from the East was due to arrive, Katherine retired to her own office. Half an hour later, looking down from her window, she saw the old surrey of Mr. Huggins" draw up beside the curb, in it a quietly dressed, middle-aged pa.s.senger who had the appearance of a solid man of affairs. He crossed the sidewalk and a little later Katherine heard him enter Old Hosie"s office on the floor below. After a time she saw the stranger go out and drive around the Square to the Tippecanoe House, Peck"s hotel, where Katherine had directed that Mr. Manning be sent to facilitate his being detected by the enemy.
Her plan laid, Katherine saw there was little she could do but await developments--and in the meantime to watch Blake, which Mr. Mannings"
role would not permit his doing, and to watch and study Doctor Sherman. Despite this new plan, and her hopes in it, she realized that it was primarily a plan to defeat Blake"s scheme against the city. She still considered Doctor Sherman the pivotal character in her father"s case; he was her father"s accuser, the man who, she believed more strongly every day, could clear him with a few explanatory words. So she determined to watch him none the less closely because of her new plan--to keep her eyes upon him for signs that might show his relations to Blake"s scheme--to watch for signs of the breaking of his nerve, and at the first sign to pounce accusingly upon him.
When she reached home that afternoon she found Bruce awaiting her.
Since morning, mixed with her palpitating love and her desire to see him, there had been dread of this meeting. In the back of her mind the question had all day tormented her, should she, for his own interests, send him away? But sharper than this, sharper a hundredfold, was the fear lest the difference between their opinions should come up.
But Bruce showed no inclination to approach this difference. Love was too new and near a thing for him to wander from the present. For this delay she was fervently grateful, and forgetful of all else she leaned back in a big old walnut chair and abandoned herself completely to her happiness, which might perhaps be all too brief. They talked of a thousand things--talk full of mutual confession: of their former hostility, of what it was that had drawn their love to one another, of last night out in the storm. The spirits of both ran high. Their joy, as first joy should be, was sparkling, effervescent.
After a time she sat in silence for several moments, smiling half-tenderly, half-roguishly, into his rugged, square-hewed face, with its glinting gla.s.ses and its _chevaux de frise_ of bristling hair.
"Well," he demanded, "what are you thinking about?"
"I was thinking what very bad eyes I have."
"Bad eyes?"
"Yes. For up to yesterday I always considered you----But perhaps you are thin-skinned about some matters?"
"Me thin-skinned? I"ve got the epidermis of a crocodile!"
"Well, then--up to yesterday I always thought you--but you"re sure you won"t mind?"
"I tell you I"m so thick-skinned that it meets in the middle!"
"Well, then, till yesterday I always thought you rather ugly."
"Glory be! Eureka! Excelsior!"
"Then you don"t mind?"
"Mind?" cried he. "Did you think that I thought I was pretty?"
"I didn"t know," she replied with her provoking, happy smile, "for men are such conceited creatures."
"I"m not authorized to speak for the rest, but I"m certainly conceited," he returned promptly. "For I"ve always believed myself one of the ugliest animals in the whole human menagerie. And at last my merits are recognized."
"But I said "till yesterday"," she corrected. "Since then, somehow, your face seems to have changed."
"Changed?"
"Yes. I think you are growing rather good-looking." Behind her happy raillery was a tone of seriousness.
"Good-looking? Me good-looking? And that"s the way you dash my hopes!"
"Yes, sir. Good-looking."
"Woman, you don"t know what sorrow is in those words you spoke! Just to think," he said mournfully, "that all my life I"ve fondled the belief that when I was made G.o.d must have dropped the clay while it was still wet."
"I"m sorry----"
"Don"t try to comfort me. The blow"s too heavy." He slowly shook his head. "I never loved a dear gazelle----"
"Oh, I don"t mean the usual sort of good-looking," she consoled him.
"But good-looking like an engine, or a crag, or a mountain."
"Well, at any rate," he said with solemn resignation, "it"s something to know the particular type of beauty that I am."
Suddenly they both burst into merry laughter.
"But I"m really in earnest," she protested. "For you really are good-looking!"
He leaned forward, caught her two hands in his powerful grasp and almost crushed his lips against them.
"Perhaps it"s just as well you don"t mind my face, dear," he half-whispered, "for, you know, you"re going to see a lot of it."
She flushed, and her whole being seemed to swim in happiness. They did not speak for a time; and she sat gazing with warm, luminous eyes into his rugged, determined face, now so soft, so tender.
But suddenly her look became very grave, for the question of the morning had recurred to her. Should she not give him up?
"May I speak about something serious?" she asked with an effort.
"Something very serious?"
"About anything in the world!" said he.
"It"s something I was thinking about this morning, and all day," she said. "I"m afraid I haven"t been very thoughtful of you. And I"m afraid you haven"t been very thoughtful of yourself."
"How?"
"We"ve been together quite often of late."
"Not often enough!"