“And think how you deceived poor little me, about it!” she purred contentedly. After all, thought Bob, it didn’t take “much of a one” to satisfy her. She had only wanted “it,” perhaps, because “it” fitted in; “it” went with eloping. Perhaps “it” would have to happen about once so often. Bob hoped not. She was a dainty little tyrant who let him see plainly she had sharp claws. She could scratch as well as purr. Somehow, he felt that he was doubly in her power—that he was doubly her slave now—that something had happened which made him so. He could not imagine what it was. “They’re keeping it very quiet, though,” she went on. “The robbery, I mean!” “There has been a robbery at Mrs. Ralston’s?” “Of course. And you didn’t know a thing about it?” she mocked him. “I certainly did not.” “You say that just as if it were so,” she observed admiringly. “I don’t suppose you are aware that some one did really substitute a counterfeit brooch for Mrs. Vanderpool’s wonderful pink pearl and bronze diamond brooch, after all? Oh, no, you don’t know that. You’re only a poor little ignorant dear. Bless its innocent little heart! It didn’t know a thing. Not it!” She was talking baby-talk now, the while her fingers were playing with Bob’s ear. He was so interested in what she was saying, however, that he failed to note the baby-talk and overlooked the liberties she was taking with his hearing apparatus. “By jove!” he exclaimed. “That accounts for what I thought I saw in the hall that night when I left your room. Imagined I saw some one! Believe now it was some one, after all. And that door I heard click? Whose door is that on the other side of the hall from your room and about twenty-five feet nearer the landing?” Excitedly. “Gwendoline Gerald’s,” was the unexpected answer. Bob caught his breath. He was becoming bewildered. “But nothing was missing from Miss Gerald’s room, was there?” he asked. “Don’t _you_ know?” said she. “I do not.” “My! aren’t you the beautiful fibber! I’m wondering if you ever tell the truth?” “I don’t tell anything else.” Indignantly. “And that’s the trouble.” “And how well you stick to it!” Admiringly. “If you tell such ones _before_, how will it be _after_?” “After what?” he demanded. “The church ceremony,” she giggled. “Don’t you worry about that. There isn’t going to be any.” “It’s perfectly lovely of you to say there isn’t. It will be such fun to see you change your mind.” She spoke in that regular on-to-Washington tone. “I can just see you walking up the aisle. Won’t you look handsome? And poor, demure little me! I shan’t look like hardly anything.” Bob pretended not to hear. “You say they are keeping it very quiet about the robbery at the Ralston house. How, then, did you come to know?”