Edward S. Van Zile

“ Beverly Jones, severely. "If Harold Marsden's no worse than the general run of men, then we might as well give up the fight."
"What fight?" asked Dick Bloomfield, eagerly, but Mrs. Beverly Jones merely stared at him haughtily.
"Here comes Elinor. Hush!" cried somebody on the outskirts of the throng.
With my heart in my throat and a realization that my hands were like ice, I slipped through the doorway and hurried up-stairs, bent on a hasty exit from the house. ”

“ Come, now, hurry, James. I haven't any time to lose. It's very bad form for an unbidden guest to be late to the feast, you see."
Released from my valet's deft hands, I stood for a moment at the door of my dressing-room, carefully weighing a new thought that had come to me
"James," I said, presently, "go into my bedroom and get me my revolver. I may be out very late." ”

“ But real genius is bound to reassert itself, and Elinor, with a brilliancy of inspiration that I could not refrain from admiring, had actually seized victory from the very elements of defeat, had reëstablished her reputation for originality from the real fountainhead of its decline. ”

“ I was recalled to a more sensible mental attitude by scraps of conversation that forced themselves on my errant consciousness.
"She's a very stunning woman," remarked Ned Pendleton, at my elbow; "a symphony to-night in black-and-white." ”

“ Marsden's apartments," he whispered to me. "A man—dressed just as you are—sneaked in there a moment ago and closed the door behind him. You've got your gun with you, of course. You'll find him at the jewel-case, I think. You'd better cover him as you go in."
For a moment I stood hesitant. To come uninvited to Elinor's divorce-party was bad enough, but to break forcibly into her private rooms was infinitely worse. But there stood Nemesis in livery at my very elbow, and I was forced to act. There was no other alternative. ”

“ I remarked, desperately. "I'm a detective—here to guard the jewels, et cetera. Pass the word to the other servants, will you? I mustn't be questioned, you know, even if my actions seem to be a bit eccentric now and then. Do you understand me? There's a back stairway, of course? I'll go down that way, with your permission; and, by the way, get me a little brandy, will you? I'm not up to much tonight."
The man, evidently both puzzled and impressed by my authoritative manner, hurried into the dressing-room and returned to me at once with a liqueur-glass full of cognac. ”

“ Elinor's awfully eccentric, but she knows where to draw the line."
"I saw Harold at the club this afternoon," remarked Dick Bloomfield, who has a pretty talent for gossip. " He looked well and happy."
"I don't see how he could," snapped Mrs. Beverly Jones. "But I suppose even the worst man in the world would look happy enough at a club." ”

“ I wondered if Elinor had recalled at her toilette the fact that 1 had often urged her to adopt permanently this mode of dressing her hair, and that I had frequently asserted she looked more stunning in black silk and pearls than in any other costume. Bah! what silly freaks the overwrought mind is apt to indulge in at times! ”