“I suppose I might just have placed it somewhere, on the mantle, for example, and not said anything about Miss Dolly’s part in the affair,” he observed musingly. “It might have been more chivalrous. One doesn’t like to complain of a woman, you know, and a fellow guest at that.” With regret that sounded genuine. “I think you took the only course a conscientious man could,” said Gwendoline Gerald. “Indeed, I can appreciate your position. You did what any honest man would feel impelled to do.” Again that gracious smile! Again a slight gleaming in the hammer-man’s eyes! At the moment she seemed to realize in every way the poet’s picture of regal young womanhood—“divinely tall” and most divinely fashioned, she appeared, as she stood with the light from a great chandelier full upon her. “Your approval is very dear to me,” the hammer-thrower murmured. “I think I have your friendship. That is much—much, indeed. But—” For a moment he seemed about to say more. His strong, honest-looking face surely wore an expression of some feeling deeper than friendship. Would Gwendoline Gerald have shrunk from a verbal expression of what his look seemed to imply? The violet eyes never appeared deeper, more enigmatic—receptive. The hammer-thrower did not go on, however. He reverted to that other topic. “Perhaps it would be as well to drop the matter altogether,” he remarked. “I am quite satisfied to do so, if you are.” “That is nice of you,” she said in a tone that implied she still approved of him. “But I think I shall speak to Dolly. Or, at least, let her see the ring is on my finger.” “I can’t understand why she should have done it,” he observed in puzzled accents as they crossed the room. “I can’t quite see how it can be classed as a joke.” “Dolly has the wildest idea of humor,” returned Gwendoline. “As a little girl she was always doing the maddest things. Perhaps, too, she has been reading about those sensational robberies and wished to perpetrate a hoax.” “I say, that would have been rather rough on a fellow, wouldn’t it?” “And then, after creating a little excitement, she would have come forward and said she did it. Maybe she read about that escapade of young men and girls at an English house-party. They carried off valuables in an automobile, and returned the same, piece-meal, by parcel post. I don’t say my explanation of Dolly’s prank is a correct one,” said Miss Gerald, tentatively lifting long sweeping lashes to regard her companion, “but it may in some measure throw light upon it.” “Unless—?” He paused. “Unless what?” she asked. “Nothing. Only I was thinking—” The violet eyes became suddenly darker. “You mean about what you told me this morning—about Mr. Bennett and how you found him—?” “I really didn’t wish to speak of that, only it was strange—” He stopped. “Strange, indeed,” she observed, studying him. “Anyhow, I can’t see how to connect that with this,” he confessed.