But in London he
is a promoter of companies."
"So my friend tells me," said Mrs. Ashton. "She's just got back from
London. Her husband told her that Harry, my husband, was always at the
American bar in the Cecil or at the Salisbury or the Savoy." The girl
shook her head. "But a woman can't go looking for a man there," she
protested. "That's, why I thought you--"
"That'll be all right," Ford assured her hurriedly. "It's a coincidence,
but it happens that my own work takes me to these hotels, and if your
husband is there I will find him." He returned the photographs.
"Hadn't you better keep one?" she asked.
"I won't forget him," said the reporter. "Besides"--he turned his eyes
toward the doctor and, as though thinking aloud, said--"he may have
grown a beard."
There was a pause.
The eyes of the woman grew troubled. Her lips pressed together as though
in a sudden access of pain.
"And he may," Ford continued, "have changed his name."
As though fearful, if she spoke, the tears would fall, the girl nodded
her head stiffly.
Having learned what he wanted to know Ford applied to the wound a
soothing ointment of promises and encouragement.
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