y enough, it began
as this has, at my cousin's house. But we must try to keep her out of
the matter. Were she asked what you said it might be embarrassing,
don't you think?"

"What I said? What did I say?"

Annandale as he spoke looked so abject that Orr feared that he might
go to pieces there and then. Humanely he changed the subject. "Of
course, whoever did it will be nabbed. Meanwhile, it is only to
prevent any stupid suspicions that I venture to advise. By the way,
have you any idea who could have done it?"

Annandale again ran his hand across his eyes; then, looking up at Orr,
he replied: "Not one--unless he did it himself."

"H'm. Well, yes. That might be. But what does Mrs. Annandale think?"

"She does not know. Or, at least, she did not at noon. I heard it then
from Harris. I told him not to say anything to her. Shortly after, as
I understood, she went out, to her mother's, I believe, though, of
course, since then----"

The sentence was not completed. Fanny was entering the room. Orr had
always admired her very much, but never so much as then. She was
dressed in black, which is becoming to blonds, and richly dressed, he
afterward thought, he could not be sure for he lacked the huckster's
eye. But his admiration was not on this occasion induced by her looks,
though a woman's looks, when she has any, are always notable if
unnoticed factors. His admiration was caused by the way she took
things.

With the air of one inquiring the time of day she glanced at Annandale
and asked, almost with a lisp: "Why didn't you shoot me?"

Orr turned to Annandale. He was rising. From his face the flush had
gone. He was lurid. The word lurid is used because it is more dramatic
than its synonym, ghastly. And here was drama, real drama, in real
life.

"Fanny, you don't think that I----"

Drama, real drama, is an enjoyable rarity. Orr longed to stay and see
it out. But, obviously, anything of the kind would have been worse
than indiscreet. He picked up his hat.

"Fanny," Annandale repeated, "you can't think----"

"Oh," she interrupted, "you see you made it quite unnecessary for me
to think at all. You told me beforehand. Wasn't it considerate?" she
added, turning to Orr.

"But I did not mean it," cried Annandale. "As God is my witness----"

"I am a witness," Fanny interjected, interrupting him again. But the
interruption was effected without abruptness, without apparent
emotion, sweetly, almost lispingly, with a modu