The Girl in the Mirror Part 28

"Do you imagine that we can get away now, in broad daylight?" She seemed dazed by the suggestion.

"Why not? You want to get out of here, don't you?"

"Yes--I--of course I do!"

"You don't seem very sure of it."

Laurie was smiling down at her with his hands still in his pockets, but there was an expression in his eyes she had never seen there before, an expression keen, cold, almost but not quite suspicious.

"Yes, but--you don't understand. Shaw has other men on watch, two of them."

"Where?"

"In the grounds. One in the front and the other in the back."

The new-comer mentally digested this unwelcome information.

"If we wait till it's dark," said the girl, "we'll have a better chance."

"Unless Shaw gets back in the meantime." He was still watching her with that new look in his eyes. Then, briskly, he returned to his interest in the doorlock.

"In any case," he casually remarked, "we don't want to be jailed here."

She said no more, but sat watching him as he worked, deftly and silently. In little more than the time he had predicted he opened the door and held it wide.

"Any time you would like to pa.s.s out," he invited, then checked himself and vanished in the dimness of the hall. The girl left behind heard the sounds of running feet, of a sharp scuffle, of a few words spoken in a high, excited voice. Then Laurie reentered the room, pus.h.i.+ng the secretary before him. At present the youth looked anything but meek. His blond hair was on end, his tie was under one ear, his pale eyes were bright with anger, and he moved spasmodically, propelled by jerks from behind.

"I don't like this young man," said Laurie, conversationally. "I never have. So I'm going to put him where for a few hours he can't annoy us.

Is there a good roomy closet on this floor? If there is, kindly lead us to it."

"Say, hold on!" cried the blond youth, in outraged tones. "I'm sick of this."

"Shut up." Laurie shook him gently. "And cheer up. You're going to have a change. Lead on, please."

Thus urged, and further impelled, the secretary obediently led the way to a closet at the far end of the upper hall. It was fairly commodious, and full of garments hanging on pegs and smelling oppressively of camphor. It afforded an electric-light fixture, and Laurie, switching on the light, emphasized this advantage to the reluctant new occupant, who unwisely put up a brief and losing fight on its threshold.

"You may read if you like," Laurie affably suggested, when this had been suppressed. "I'll bring you some magazines. You may even smoke. Mr. Shaw and I always treat our prisoners with the utmost courtesy. You don't smoke? Excellent! Safer for the closet, and a fine stand for a worthy young man to take. Now, I'll get the magazines for you."

He did so, and the blond secretary accepted them with a black scowl.

"I'm afraid," observed Laurie regretfully, "he has an ungrateful nature."

He locked the door on the infuriated youth, pocketed the key, and faced Doris, who had followed the brief procession. The little encounter had restored his poise.

"What next?" he asked, placidly.

Her reply was in the nature of a shock.

"I'd like to have you wash up."

He raised his eyebrows.

"And spoil my admirable disguise? However, if you insist, I suppose I can get most of the effect again with ashes, if I have to. Where's a bath-room?"

She indicated a door, and returned to her room. He made his ablutions slowly and very thoughtfully. There were elements in this new twist of the situation which did not tally with any of his former hypotheses.

Doris, too, was doing some thinking on her own account. When he returned to the sitting-room she wore the air of one who has pondered deeply and has come to a conclusion.

"What do your friends call you?" she abruptly asked.

"All kinds of things," admitted the young man. "I wouldn't dare to repeat some of them." Under the thoughtful regard of her red-brown eyes his manner changed. "My sister calls me Laurie," he added soberly.

"May I?"

"By all means, if you'll promise _not_ to be a sister to me."

"Then--Laurie--"

"I like that," he interrupted.

"So do I. Laurie--I--I'm going to tell you something."

He waited, watching her; and under the renewed friendliness of his black eyes she stopped and flushed, her own eyes dropping before his. As if to gain time she changed her position in the chair where she sat, and leaned forward, an elbow on its arm, her chin in one hand, her gaze on the fire. His perception sharpened to the knowledge that something important was coming, and that it was something she was afraid to tell.

She had keyed herself up to it, but the slightest false move on his part might check the revelation. Therefore, though every impulse in him responded to her first intimate use of his name, he dropped negligently into the chair facing hers, tenderly embraced his knees with both arms, and answered with just the right accent of casual interest and interrogation.

"Yes?" he said.

"Please smoke." Again she was playing for time. "And--and don't look at me," she added, almost harshly. "I--I think I can get it out better if you don't."

His answer was to swing his chair around beside hers, facing the blazing logs, and to take out his case and light a cigarette.

"I'm going to tell you everything," she said in a low tone.

"I'm glad of that."

"I'm going to do it," she went on slowly, "for two reasons. The first is that--that you've lost faith in me."

This brought his eyes around to hers in a quick glance. "You're wrong about that."

She shook her head. "Oh, no, I'm not. You showed it almost from the moment you came, and there was an instant when you thought that my suggestion to wait till dark to get away meant a--a sort of ambush."

He made no reply to this, and she said urgently, "Didn't you? Come, now.

Confess."

He reflected for a moment.

"The idea did cross my mind," he admitted, at last. "But it didn't linger. For one reason, it was impossible to reconcile it with Shaw's desire to keep me out of the way. That, and this, are hard to understand. But no harder to understand," he went on, "than that you should willingly come here and yet send for me, and then quite obviously delay our leaving after I get here."

Again her eyes dropped before his brilliant, steady glance.