Page:The Clue of the Twisted Candle (1916).djvu/139

slender girl; the pink-and-whiteness of her, the aliveness and buoyancy and the thrilling sense of vitality she carried in her very presence.

"What is the weirdest name you have ever heard?" asked Kara laughingly. "I ask you, because Miss Holland and I have been discussing a begging letter addressed to us by a Maggie Goomer."

The girl smiled slightly and in that smile was paradise, thought T. X.

"The weirdest name?" he repeated, "why I think the worst I have heard for a long time is Belinda Mary."

"That has a familiar ring," said Kara.

T. X. was looking at the girl.

She was staring at him with a certain languid insolence which made him curl up inside. Then with a glance at her employer she swept from the room.

"I ought to have introduced you," said Kara. "That was my secretary, Miss Holland. Rather a pretty girl, isn't she?"

"Very," said T. X., recovering his breath.