Sophie's Halloo Read Online Free PDF Page B

obvious. He has to be able to fool the green ones, at least.” Sophie supposed he was including her in this category, but his next words removed all offense.
    “The reason I can detect him is because I’ve lost enough to persons of his brotherhood to make me more knowing. And I’ve met up with them again in such places where their masks were down.”
    As he said this, a new thought occurred to Sophie.  “Are you a peep-o-day boy, Sir Tony?” she asked glancing up at him shyly.
    She thought she heard him smother a laugh, but he answered her seriously enough. “No, Miss Corby, I am not.”
    There was more Sophie would have asked him, but she was afraid he would laugh at her ignorance, so she looked about the park again in what she thought a worldly-wise fashion. As she did so, she noted that a middle-aged woman with three elegant young females in a handsome equipage was waving in their direction.  Sophie turned quickly to Tony and said, “Pardon me, but that lady in the handsome carriage seems to know you. She is trying to capture your attention.”
    Tony leaned forward in his seat to see whom she was speaking of, but immediately returned to his position.  “She must be mistaken,” he said with a suspicious twist to his lips. “I do not recall having met her.”
    “Are you certain?” Sophie persisted, looking once again at the ladies and smiling uncertainly. “She has not stopped waving. She has three young ladies with her. I suppose they are her daughters. Perhaps if we drove closer you might recognize her.”
    Tony cleared his throat and turned the phaeton in the opposite direction. “I do not think that would be wise, Miss Corby. Your father would surely object.”
    “But why?” asked Sophie.
    The horses had settled into a comfortable trot again, so Tony could face her more easily. There was an unmistakable grin on his face. “Let us just say that although I have not met them, I recognize them sufficiently to know that they would not be proper acquaintances for you—though you will come into contact with some who are no better. Those are not the lady’s daughters riding with her. They are more in the nature of employees.”
    “But they are dressed quite as elegantly as she,” protested Sophie stubbornly.
    Her persistence seemed to delight him, and he finally let loose with laughter. “Miss Corby,” he asked her, “has no one told you that you would be wiser not to pursue a topic when you’ve been offered polite evasions? It would truly not be proper of me to elucidate the matter fully, though if you insist, I shall. But you must not report me to your parents if I do, for I gave you ample and fair warning.”
    Sophie sat for a minute and reflected. Certainly her mother would wish for her to desist, but a glance at Tony’s face decided her. There was something rather alluring in the way he looked at her, as though he dared her to question him. She was reminded of that first night’s wink and her flight up the stairs.
    Folding her hands in her lap demurely, she tried to strike a reasoning attitude. “It seems to me, Sir Tony,” she said, “that you have taken it upon yourself to caution me and instruct me in the ways of the city. If there is something I ought to know to protect myself against improper associations, I can only take it as a kindness in you to inform me.” She looked at him as a schoolmistress might when expecting a pupil to recite a lesson.
    She must have caught him unprepared, however, for he was sufficiently distracted to allow the horses to stray near an on-coming vehicle and a few moments passed before he brought them back into line. By that time, he had managed to conceal his amusement and could answer her in approximately the same tone of scientific inquiry that she had employed.
    “Very well. The person who was beckoning to us from the carriage yonder is what is commonly called a procuress.” Tony kept his gaze on his horses as he spoke. “The young women with her are