Miss Dolly shook her head reprovingly, and her temperamental hair flowed all about her over the white counterpane. She knew it must look very becoming, it was such wonderful hair—that is, for dark hair. Bob preferred light. Not that he was thinking of hair, now! “Can’t you do better than that?” asked the temperamental young thing. “Better than what?” queried Bob ill-naturedly. He was beginning to feel real snappy. “Invent a better whopper, I mean?” “It isn’t a whopper, and—and I positively refuse to stay here any longer. Positively!” “Oh, no; not positively,” said Miss Dolly, nodding a wise young head. “You’re going to stay, unless—you know the alternative. Since I’m destined to be a heroine, I want a regular play-scene. I don’t want my part cut down to nothing. Don’t you love thief-plays, Mr. Bennett? It’s such fun to see people running around, not knowing who _is_ the thief. I’m sure I feel quite privileged, in this instance.” Bob growled beneath his breath. He was handsome enough certainly for a matinee hero. He was tall and lithe and had such clean-cut features. The temperamental young thing regarded him with thrilling approval. He entirely realized her ideal of a social burglar. It seemed almost too good to be true. “I knew you were different from other men,” she said. “Something told me from the very first; perhaps it was the way you tangoed. I expected you would ask me to trot, but you didn’t.” Reprovingly. “Suppose you were otherwise engaged?” Glancing toward the brooch. “Not the way you think!” said Bob gloomily, looking more striking than ever in that melancholy pose. It seemed to harmonize with a crime-stained career. “Of course,” murmured Dolly, “it was you who got Mrs. Templeton Blenfield’s wonderful emeralds?” “It was not,” answered Bob curtly. “You were at that costume ball where she lost them?” “Suppose I was?” he snapped. Yes, snapped! There is a limit to human endurance. “And you were at Mrs. Benton Briscoe’s when a tiara mysteriously disappeared?” “Well, I’m hanged!” said Bob, staring at her. “Oh, I hope not—that is, I hope you won’t be, some day,” answered Dolly. “Are you going to ‘fess up?’ You’d better. Maybe I won’t betray you—yet. Maybe I won’t at all, if you’re real nice.” “Oh!” said Bob. Whereupon she smiled at him sweetly, just as if to say it was nice and exciting to have a great, big, bold (and wildly handsome) society-highwayman in her power. Why, she could send him to jail, if she wanted to. She had but to lift a little finger and he would have to jump. The consciousness of guilty knowledge and power she possessed made her glow all over. She didn’t really know though, yet, whether she would be kind or severe. “Do you operate alone, or with accomplices?” she asked, after a few moments’ pleasurable anticipations. “I beg pardon?” Bob was again gazing uneasily toward the door. “Got any pals?” She tried to talk the way they do in the thief-books.