After I’d heard all this I opened up with what I’d collected. The Chief didn’t say much, which is his way when you come in with a new "twist," but Mr. George wouldn’t have it, got quite peevish and said my imagination had run away with me. "Do you think a girl in love with another man would have embroiled herself with Price the way she has?" he snapped out. "I don’t know, Mr. George. I’m not ready to say yet what she’s done or hasn’t done. No one can deny that things are dead against her. All I’m sure of now is that she is in love with Mr. Ferguson and, that being the case, I don’t think she’s the kind, guilty or innocent, who’d take up with another man." "But you can’t base a conviction on a moment’s pantomime such as you overlooked. The girl was probably angry at Mrs. Price’s manner. It can be a deuced disagreeable manner; I’ve seen it." "She didn’t act like that—it wasn’t only anger—it was all sorts of feelings." He couldn’t see it any way but his own and hammered at me. "But the whole structure’s built on the assumption of an affair between her and Price. Do you think she’d steal for him, lie for him, hire a room to meet him in, unless she was so crazy about him she was clay in his hands?" "Mr. George," I said, dropping back in my chair sort of helpless but still as obstinate as a government mule, "every word you say sounds like sense and I’m not saying it isn’t. But while I’m not passing any criticisms on you, in this kind of question, I’d back my own judgment against any man’s that ever lived since Adam tried to throw the blame on Eve." The Chief laughed like he was amused at the scrapping of two kids. "That’s right, Molly," he says, "don’t let him brow-beat you, stick to your own opinion." "Well, what do _you_ think?" Mr. George turned to him all red and ruffled up. "Isn’t she building up theories on the flimsiest kind of foundation?" The Chief wouldn’t give him any satisfaction. "I’ll take a leaf out of her book," he said, "not pass any criticisms. And I think we’re going on too fast. I expect to have Chapman here himself in a day or two and ask some questions about that long ride on the night of July the seventh. After that we’ll be on a firmer footing—or we ought to be. Meantime, Molly, you go back to Grasslands. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut and if anything turns up let me know." CHAPTER XIV—A CHAPTER ABOUT BAD TEMPERS Things were not going Mr. Larkin’s way. What had begun with such bright promise was declining to a twilight uncertainty. The morning after his ignominious failure with Willitts he had a letter from Suzanne, forwarded from his New York office, telling him that she would be in town on the following Monday and would like to see him. The letter disturbed him greatly. It was not alone that he had nothing to report; it was that the tone of the missive was irritated and impatient. It was the angrily imperious summons of a lady who is disappointed in her hireling.