Part 46

Macloud bowed. "I'll go out to Northumberland to-night, arrange a few matters which are overdue, and come down to Hampton as soon as I can get away."

* * * * *

The next afternoon, as Macloud was entering the wide doorway of the Tuscarora Trust Company, he met Elaine Cavendish coming out.

"Stranger! where have you been these many weeks?" she said, giving him her hand.

"Out of town," he answered. "Did you miss me so much?"

"I did! There isn't a handy dinner man around, with you and Geoffrey both away. Dine with us this evening, will you?--it will be strictly en famille, for I want to talk business."

"Wants to talk business!" he thought, as, having accepted, he went on to the coupon department. "It has to do with that beggar Croyden, I reckon."

* * * * *

And when, the dinner over, they were sitting before the open grate fire, in the big living room, she broached the subject without timidity, or false pride.

"You are more familiar with Geoffrey Croyden's affairs than any one else, Colin," she said, crossing her knees, in the reckless fashion women have now-a-days, and exposing a ravishing expanse of blue silk stockings, with an unconscious consciousness that was delightfully naive. "And I want to ask you something--or rather, several things."

Macloud blew a whiff of cigarette smoke into the fire, and waited.

"I, naturally, don't ask you to violate any confidence," she went on, "but I fancy you may tell me this: was the particular business in which Geoffrey was engaged, when I saw him in Annapolis, a success or a failure?"

"Why do you ask!" Macloud said. "Did he tell you anything concerning it?"

"Only that his return to Northumberland would depend very much on the outcome."

"But nothing as to its character?"

"No," she answered.

"Well, it wasn't a success; in fact, it was a complete failure."

"And where is Geoffrey, now?" she asked.

"I do not know," he replied.

She laughed lightly. "I do not mean, where is he this minute, but where is he in general--where would you address a wire, or a letter, and know that it would be received?"

He threw his cigarette into the grate and lit another.

"I am not at liberty to tell," he said.

"Then, it is true--he is concealing himself."

"Not exactly--he is not proclaiming himself----"

"Not proclaiming himself or his whereabouts to his Northumberland friends, you mean?"

"Friends!" said Macloud. "Are there such things as friends, when one has been unfortunate?"

"I can answer only for myself," she replied earnestly.

"I believe you, Elaine----"