"Not permitted. Still determined to stay the run of your lease?"
Cutty heard a laugh. "All right. Only I hope you will never have cause to regret this decision."
"Fiddlesticks! All I've got to do in danger is to press a button, and presto! here's Bernini."
"Kitty, did Hawksley pay you for that meal?"
"Good heavens, no! What makes you ask that?"
"In his delirium he spoke of having paid you. I didn't know."
Cutty's heart began to rap against his ribs. Supposing, after all, Karlov hadn't the stones? Supposing Hawksley had hidden them somewhere in Kitty's kitchen?
"Anything about Gregor?"
"No. Remember, you're to call me up twice a day and report the news.
Don't go out nights if you can avoid it."
"I'll be good," Kitty agreed. "And now I must hie me to the job.
Imagine, Cutty ! - writing personalities about stage folks and gabfesting with Burlingame and all the while my brain boiling with this affair! The city room will kill me, Cutty, if it ever finds out that I held back such a yarn. But it wouldn't he fair to Johnny Two-Hawks. Cutty, did you know that your wonderful drums of jeopardy are here in New York?"
"What?" barked Cutty.
"Somebody is offering to buy them. There was an advertisement in the paper this morning. Cutty?"
"Yes."
"The first problem in arithmetic is two and two make four. By-by!"
Dizzily Cutty hung up the receiver. He had not reckoned on the possibility of Kitty seeing that damfool advertisement. Two and two made four; and four and four made eight; so on indefinitely.
That is to say, Kitty already had a glimmer of the startling truth.
The initial misstep on his part had been made upon her pronouncement of the name Stefani Gregor. He hadn't been able to control his surprise. And yesterday, having frankly admitted that he knew Gregor, all that was needed to complete the circle was that advertisement. Cutty tore his hair, literally. The very door he hoped she might overlook he had thrown open to her.
Thaddeus of Warsaw. But it should not be. He would continue to offer a haven to that chap; but no nonsense. None of that sinister and unfortunate blood should meddle with Kitty Conover's happiness.
Her self-appointed guardian would attend to that.
He realized that his attitude was rather inexplicable; but there were some adventures which hypnotized women; and one of this sort was now unfolding for Kitty. That she had her share of common sense was negligible in face of the facts that she was imaginative and romantical and adventuresome, and that for the first time she was riding one of the great middle currents in human events. She was Molly's girl; Cutty was going to look out for her.
Mighty odd that this fear for her should have sprung into being that night, quite illogically. Prescience? He could not say. Perhaps it was a borrowed instinct - fatherly; the same instinct that would have stirred her father into action - the protection of that dearest to him.
If he told her who Hawksley really was, that would intrigue her. If he made a mystery of the affair, that, too, would intrigue her. And there you were, 'twixt the devil and the deep blue sea. Hang it, what evil luck had stirred him to tell her about those emeralds?
Already she was building a story to satisfy her dramatic fancy. Two and two made four - which signified that she was her father's daughter, that she would not rest until she had explored every corner of this dark room. Wanting to keep her out of it, and then dragging her into it through his cupidity. Devil take those emeralds! Always the same; trouble wherever they were.
The real danger would rise during the convalescence. Kitty would be contriving to drop in frequently; not to see Hawksley especially, but her initial success in playing hide and seek with secret agents, friendly and otherwise, had tickled her fancy. For a while it would be an exciting game; then it might become only a means to an end.
Well, it should not be.
Was there a girl! Already Hawksley had recorded her beauty. Very well; the first sign of sentimental nonsense, and out he should go, Karlov or no Karlov. Kitty wasn't going to know any hurt in this affair. That much was decided.
Cutty stormed into his study, growling audibly. He filled a pipe and smoked savagely. Another side, Kitty's entrance into the drama promised to spoil his own fun; he would have to play two games instead of one. A fine muddle!
He came to a stand before one of the windows and saw the glory of the morning flashing from the myriad spires and towers and roofs, and wondered why artists bothered about cows in pastures.
