"Mally and Peter Pagan and Liane Delorme? And they've been such fun! What's the matter with Liane?"
"Madame Delorme," Lanyard said slowly and with meaning, "I have known many years. Her friendship I value highly. I should be very sad to do anything to deserve her enmity."
"You _are_ provoking!" Folly declared--"forever tantalizing one with hints. I presume you mean me to understand she's the notorious demi-mondaine you mentioned."
"Has Liane told you nothing about herself?"
"Then I beg you to excuse me from saying anything that might, possibly through my ignorance of the true facts, conflict with her confidences."
"Beast!" said Folly McFee with feeling, and made him a face of pique. "I suppose it's no use trying to pump you about that international jewel thief . . ."
"Peter Pagan was talking about him at the Ritz tonight, told us there was a rumour the Lone Wolf had convalesced from his reformation and was on the loose again, right here in New York."
"I have no doubt," Lanyard agreed with entire tranquillity, "there is such a rumour . . . And now that I have duly functioned in my paternal rôle, my dear young woman"--he rose--"now I have told you all I know--"
"I fancy you will be relieved if I bid you good night."
"I think you're perfectly damn' horrid," said Folly McFee, rising and extending her hand. "First you spoil my evening, then you run away."
"You will forgive me one spoiled evening, I know, if anything I may have said preserves to you the beauty of your tomorrows."
"I won't forgive you for running away from me," the young woman promised darkly, holding fast to his hand and unleashing 80 c.-p. eyes to do their devastating work. "You can be rather a dear when you choose; but I don't think it's a bit fair of you to rob me of four friends and not replace them with one."
"But I trust very truly--" Lanyard began.
A peremptory buzz of the doorbell interrupted.
Folly McFee whipped her hand away with a jerk, her round eyes consulted Lanyard's, in that furtive tone which people seem instinctively to adopt in times of apprehension, irrespective of the possibility of being overheard, "What can that mean?" she demanded--"at this hour of morning! Who can it be?"
"One or more of our fancy friends, undoubtedly," Lanyard replied with comforting absence of agitation--"calling to enquire if you got safely home--with, I'll wager, some transparent excuse for having left you to shift for yourself during the raid."