Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/193

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THE HOUSE OF INTRIGUE
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stood studying my face in the strong light of that apartment-hotel foyer. Then his eye traveled down over my outfit. I noticed his perplexed look as he took it in, box coat and shoes and all. I could feel my face turning pink, in spite of myself. I wasn't worrying about where those clothes came from; I was worrying more over the fact that it wasn't the sort of get-up that went with onyx pillars and plush carpets. And on that first day we had met, I remembered, I'd been at some pains to tell him about my weakness for nice things.

"Shall we go up?" he asked me for the second time.

"Sure," I said, making a bluff at putting on as bold a face as I could.

He tried to take my club-bag, and the elevator man tried to take my club-bag, and a Jap who opened the door for us tried to take my club-bag. But I kept that club-bag right in my own hand. And I wondered, as I stepped into Wendy Washburn's apartment, what would be the outcome of my next adventure that night.