And if he had seen either of them this morning, all his
talk to her in this cool and quiet place was a carefully prepared
hypocrisy. No, she would not believe that.
"You saw them?" he exclaimed. "Tell me how."
She told him the whole story, how she had come down the staircase,
what she had seen, as she leaned over the balustrade, and how
Parminter had turned.
"Do you think he saw you?" asked her father.
Sylvia looked at him closely. But he seemed really anxious to know.
"I think he saw something," she answered. "Whether he knew that it was I
whom he saw, I can't tell."
Garratt Skinner sat for a little while smoking his cigar in short,
angry puffs.
"I wouldn't have had that happen for worlds," he said, with a frown. "I
have no doubt whatever that the slips of paper on which poor Hine was
trying to write were I.O.U's. Heaven knows what he lost last night."
"I know," returned Sylvia. "He lost L480 last night."
"Impossible," cried Garratt Skinner, with so much violence that the
people lunching at the tables near-by looked up at the couple with
surprise. "Oh, no! I'll not believe it, Sylvia." And as he lowered his
voice, he seemed to be making an appeal to her to go back upon her words,
so distressed was he at the thought that Wallie Hine should be jockeyed
out of so much money at his house.
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