Yet why all the secrecy? Neither of them had said anything more about writing Raskoffsky after that first time. And it was only because he had come across Raskoffsky’s picture in one of Beryl’s books that he had come to know anything about it at all. “To my fair little western admirer who likes my ‘Dance Macabre’ so much. The next time I play in your city you must come and see me.” But Alice wasn’t fair or good-looking. Beryl was. And it was Beryl and not Alice, who had first raved over that dance; Alice didn’t care so much for music. And wasn’t it Beryl, and not Alice, who had proposed writing him. Yet it was Alice who had received the answer. How was that? Very likely it was Beryl who had persuaded Alice to write for her, sending her own instead of Alice’s picture, and getting Alice to receive Raskoffsky’s picture for her when it came. Something in their manner the day he had found the picture indicated as much. Alice had been so quick to say: “Oh yes. I wrote him.” But Beryl had looked a little queer when she caught him looking at her, had even flushed slightly, although she had kept her indifferent manner. At that time the incident of the car hadn’t occurred. But afterwards,—after he had imagined he had seen Beryl in the car—it had occurred to him that maybe it was Raskoffsky with whom she was with that day. He was playing in Columbus, so the papers said, and he might have been passing through the city. He was a large man too, as he now recalled, by George! If only he could find a way to prove that!