; and since then Peter had asked
for fresias at the florist's, requested the Scottish head gardener to
plant fresias in the garden, and had kept fresias in his room to call
back old dreams. If the dryad had sold her dress, would the fresia
fragrance haunt it still? Petro thought not. The other woman would
have given it her own special perfume. Only in the possession of a
dryad would it have retained this scent.

Winifred Child had been here, then--in Logan's dining-room, near
Logan's table laid so alluringly for a supper _en tete-a-tete!_

This idea, passing through several phases, had shaped itself clearly
in Peter Rolls's mind by the time the policeman's round black head had
come up from under the table. And it was because of the idea that he
sat down deliberately on the film of chiffon. He did not want
questions to be asked, or Winifred Child's name to be mentioned in
this business, at all events, until he had made up his mind what to
do.

There was still time to make it up, and speak, if necessary while the
detectives were on the spot, for Logan had offered them champagne and
they had accepted now they were sure that all parties had been
victimized by a practical joker. "Girls' drink" was not for the
guardians of New York, and Sims was opening two frosty-looking bottles
of the "real thing" just produced from some household iceberg The men
would not go for several moments yet.

Winifred Child had listened to Ena Rolls's warnings and had taken them
deeply to heart. It had seemed to her impossible that a sister could,
for any motive whatever, calumniate a brother whom she loved. And
then, Win had reminded herself that her own ignorance of men was
profound They were said to be "all alike" in some dreadful ways, even
those who seemed the noblest, the most chivalrous--or more especially
those. So she had believed Ena's words, against her own instinct, and
had not told herself that she lacked her favourite virtue--loyalty.

But with Peter it was exactly the opposite. He trusted his instinct
before everything, and though he thought that his lost dryad had been
in this shut-up house with Jim Logan, he knew that she had come
innocently.

Somehow Logan had met her, admired her (that went without saying), and
tricked her into the place. When she had understood the trick she had,
of course, tried to get away. (Why, if proof were needed, was not the
torn wisp of chiffon enough?) Her quick intelligence had suggested the
te