"Noticed them?" he repeated. He intended to say more, but a sudden, sickening doubt interfered. However, a quick, rather penetrating glance reassured him. Mr. Doxey had wrapped a rug about the unfortunate gentleman and was now engaged in making room for him behind the Steinway grand. The young lady's glance followed Bosworth's. "What is he doing?" she demanded, starting forward. "Those wax figures are not to be disturbed." Bosworth stayed her with a gesture. "You must not interfere with an officer in the discharge of his duty," he said with great gravity. "But--" "Please don't pay any attention to him," he pleaded, stepping in front of her. "Sit down and tell me about the dummies." She looked at the door through which Mr. Van Pycke had passed. "Where _has_ your father gone, Mr. Van Pycke?" "Can you keep a secret?" Her eyes were expressive. "You'll have to sit down--over here," he went on. "I don't want the detective to hear me." They sat down side by side in a Louis Seize divan. He told her of the predicament in which his father had found himself on arrival, and of the expedient footman who came to the rescue. Miss Downing stifled her laughter three times by successful applications of a handkerchief, but the fourth time she failed. If I were not writing of a young lady in a drawing-room, I'd tell the truth and say that she shrieked. "It _is_ droll, isn't it?" he asked, after watching her convulsed face for a moment. "Perfectly killing!" she gasped. He waited until she had dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief a few times and was able to meet his gaze with a certain degree of steadiness. Then he remarked: "It's strange that I've never met you before. Are you an old friend of Mrs. Scoville's?" "There isn't any Mrs. Scoville," she said quietly. She was watching his face. He stared. Then he started to his feet in alarm, with a bewildered look around the room. "Can it be that I am in the wrong house?" "There used to be a Mrs. Scoville here." "Used to be?" "But she's Mrs. De Foe now." She was smiling into his eyes now, so merrily, so frankly, that somehow he overcame the immediate impulse to express his consternation by leaping a foot or two into the air. Instead of doing anything so utterly common, he merely gulped and stared the harder. "She's--she's gone and got married to Chauncey De Foe?" he murmured, his eyes very wide. "This very night, Mr. Van Pycke," said she, leaning back to see how he would take it. His face grew suddenly radiant. "Oh," he exclaimed, "you don't know how happy you have made me!" "Happy? You?" she cried, amazed.