ouldn't just stare at her with those queer eyes
of his--a little crazy, she thought. She liked people to smile at her
when they spoke. She went on, "Not but what we work all the better for
her because we are a little afraid----"

Lydia interrupted.

"Mr. O'Bannon hasn't come to pay us a social visit, Benny," she said,
and this time there was something unmistakably insolent in her tone.

O'Bannon decided to settle this whole question on the instant. He turned
to Miss Bennett and said firmly, "I should like to speak to Miss Thorne
alone."

"Of course," said Miss Bennett, already on her way to the door, which
O'Bannon opened for her.

"No, Benny, Benny!" called Lydia, but O'Bannon had shut the door and
leaned his shoulders against it.

"Listen to me!" he said. "You must be civil to me--that is, if you want
me to stay here and try to get your jewels back."

Lydia wouldn't look at him.

"And what guaranty have I that if you do stay you can do anything about
it?"

"I think I can get them, and I can assure you the sheriff can't." There
was a long pause. "Well?" he said.

"Well what?" said Lydia, who hadn't been able to think what she was
going to do.

"Will you be civil, or shall I go?"

"I thought you just said it was your duty to stay."

"Make up your mind, please, which shall it be?"

Lydia longed to tell him to go, but she did want to get her jewels back,
particularly as she was setting out for the Emmonses' in a few minutes,
and it would save a lot of trouble to have everything arranged before
she left. She thought it over deliberately, and looking up saw that he
was amused at her cold-blooded hesitation. Seeing him smile, she found
to her surprise that suddenly she smiled back at him. It was not what
she had intended.

"Well," she thought, "let him think he's getting the best of me. As a
matter of fact, I'm using him."

She hoped he would be content with the smile, but, no, he insisted on
the spoken word. She was forced to say definitely that she would be
civil. She carried it off, in her own mind at least, by saying it as if
it were a childish game he was playing. Having received the assurance,
he moved from the door and stood opposite her, leaning on the back of a
chair.

"Now tell me what happened?" he said.

She told him how she had been waked up just before dawn by the sound of
someone moving in her dressing room. At first she had thought it was a
window, or a curtain blowing, until she had