VIII
"You are curious about me," he observed.
"I am," admitted Pete, playing up to him. "Very."
"I puzzle you," Bane added, with greater self-satisfaction.
"I don't make you out at all," confessed Pete, readily.
Bane referred to me and I played Pete's effective string.
"You're absolutely new to me," I said.
Bane firmly closed the door behind him. "It is because you never met before a man completely sane."
"That's it?" inquired Pete, as though speculating on it.
"That's it. It may prove that it was worth while to give you a chance to see it."
Evidently this was an allusion to Selby and Kent who had not been endowed with our opportunity. I did not concede that ours had come completely as a gratuitous act on the
