She had looked over his head at the unexpected return of the others. He had caught the warning in her expression, and glanced back, sitting up in his chair.
Miss Arden came smiling. "Well! You seemed interested."
Miss Morris asked defensively: "Where did you go?"
Pittsey said, with an amused eye on her: "He's been having one of his serious talks with you, has he?"
"It's a relief," she replied coolly, "to be talked to, sometimes, as if you had brains."
Miss Arden laughed, with all the sprightliness of stage comedy. "Ah, my dear, be careful! It's the most dangerous form of flirtation."
"Do we start back now?" Miss Morris asked, so oblivious to their banter that she saved even Don's shamefacedness.
They started back, but she remained thoughtfully indifferent to them—and to him—on the street car. It was not until they were parting at Mrs. Kahrle's door, that she said, in a low aside to him: "Thank you—for a delightful afternoon." And her tone of gratitude was so deep with suppressed intensity that it startled him.
It was the result of that tone—and of the qualms of conscience which it awakened in him—that when he returned to his room, he sat down to write to his uncle a full report of Conroy's condition and of his own part in it. He felt that he must clear his honour of this affair before he could meet her again. He resolved to tell her of what he had done on the Bowery; and he spent an hour, in the evening, imagining himself telling her and picturing her reception of his confession.
