CHAPTER XIV
Suspicion
"ANGEL, will you go into Anthony's private office; he told me he wanted to speak to you," Betty Graham said carelessly one afternoon in December. She was dressed for driving in a long fur coat and small black velvet hat which brought out the colors in her auburn hair in the most attractive fashion.
However, her expression changed as she saw the girl to whom she had just spoken turn white and clasp the railing of the banister as if to keep herself from falling.
"What on earth is the matter with you, Angel?" she demanded crossly. "You look like you were going to faint when I deliver a perfectly simple message. Surely you are not afraid of Anthony after living here with us all this time and working for him even longer. I suppose he just wants to speak to you about some business in connection with the office. He never talks of anything else." Then a little ashamed of her impatience, Betty put her arm on Angel's shoulder.
"There has been something on your mind recently, hasn't there, Angel, something you have not cared to confide to me?" She stopped, for her remark was half a statement and half a question.
However, Angel nodded agreement.
"Well, I am sorry, but I don't seem to be worthy of any one's confidence these days," Betty continued, trying to speak lightly. "However, if any one wishes to know where I have gone, dear, please say that Meg Emmet and I are driving together and that we are to have tea with old Professor Everett." And the next moment Betty Graham had disappeared down the steps.
Still Angel stood in the same place and in the same position.
Surely Betty was being kept in the dark if she did not dream of the trouble that had been hovering over the Governor's office for several weeks. Several important state papers had been misplaced, lost or stolen. No one knew what had become of them, yet on them a great deal depended. They were the proof that the Governor required for exposing certain men whom he believed dishonest. It was absolutely necessary that they should be found.
Summoning her courage, Angel knocked timidly at the Governor's study door. It was in front of this same door that she had watched the guests at the Inaugural Ball some weeks before. Of course it was absurd for her to be frightened at the Governor's having sent for her. She was too insignificant a person even to be questioned in regard to the lost papers, as she was only one of the unimportant stenographers at the Capitol and was only occasionally asked to do any of the Governor's private work.
Anthony was sitting with his desk littered with papers when Angel walked timidly in. She thought he looked rather old and tired and stern for so young a man. But he was always very polite and at once got up and offered her a chair.
"I am sorry to disturb you out of office hours like this, Angel," he began kindly. "I know it is Saturday afternoon and a half holiday, but I thought perhaps we could talk something over better here at home than at the office. One is so constantly interrupted there."
Angel made a queer little noise in her throat which she believed to have sounded like "Yes."
Of course the Governor was going to dismiss her from her position. She was not a particularly good stenographer, not half so fast as many of the girls, although she had tried to be thorough. But then she had no real talent for office work and of course there was no reason why she should continue to hold her position because she was a friend of the family. Positively Angel was beginning to feel sorry for the Governor's embarrassment and already had made up her mind to try and get some other kind of work. She would not stay on and be dependent.
Anthony was tapping his desk with his pencil.
"See here, Angel," he said, "I wonder if you by any chance have the faintest idea of what has become of some papers we have been a good deal worried about at the office. I know you don't often have anything to do with my private business, but I thought by accident you might have seen them lying around at some time. They were two or three letters bound around with a blue paper and a rubber band. Know anything about them?"
The girl started. For suddenly the Governor's manner had changed and he was looking at her sternly out of his rather cold, searching eyes. For a man does not win his way to greatness through all the trials that Anthony Graham had endured without having some streak of hardness in him.
Quietly Angel shook her head, but she was neither nervous nor offended by the Governor's questioning. She had heard the gossip, strictly within the office, of the loss of these letters and it was most natural that every member of the force should be investigated concerning them.
"I am sorry," she answered, her voice trembling the least little bit in spite of her efforts, "but I have never at any time seen anything of the letters you mention. Could it be possible that one of the servants at the Capitol realized their importance and stole them in order to get money for them?"
"No," the Governor answered promptly, "that is not possible, because the letters were taken from this study and in this house. Think again, Angel, have you seen nothing of them? There is no one else living in the house here, you know, who works at my office except you."
Angel jumped quickly to her feet. "You don't mean—you can't mean," she began chokingly. "Oh, I can't bear it! I shall tell Betty—she will never believe. Why, I thought you were my best friends, almost my only friends." For a moment she found it impossible to go on.
But the Governor was looking almost as wretched as she was herself. "My dear, I don't mean really to accuse you of anything, remember. I am only asking you questions. And I particularly beg of you not to mention this trouble of ours to Betty. She is not very well at present and I am afraid she thinks I am too hard on all her friends. Indeed, I am sure I should never have dreamed of you in connection with this matter, but that some one in whom I have great confidence told me that he had seen you coming out of my study on the night on which I believe my papers were mislaid. We won't talk about the matter any more for the present, however. Possibly the letters will yet turn up, and it has been only my own carelessness that is responsible for the loss. There, do go up to your own room and lie down for a while, Angel. I assure you this conversation has been as distasteful to me as it has to you. It was only because the discovery of these letters is so important that I decided to talk to you. But don't think I am accusing you."
Sympathetically and apologetically the Governor now smiled at his companion, the smile that had always changed his face so completely from a grave sternness to the utmost kindness and charm.
But Angel would not be appeased. She had always a passionate temper inherited from her Latin ancestors, though she usually kept it well under control.
"You mean your private secretary, Kenneth Helm, has suggested that you question me," she announced bitterly. "I knew he disliked me for some reason or other, but I did not know his dislike was as cruel as this. It was he who saw me sitting out here watching the people down-stairs the night of your Inaugural Ball, because I was too shy to go down alone." For an instant it occurred to Angel to say that she had seen Kenneth Helm enter the Governor's private study on this same evening. But what would have been the use? The Governor probably knew of it and certainly he had the utmost faith in his secretary. It would only look as if she were trying to be spiteful and turn the suspicion upon some one else. Besides, had she not promised Kenneth Helm not to tell? At least she would not condescend to break her word.
Stumbling half blindly, Angel made her way out of the study. In the hall she found Bettina waiting for her.
"You promised to come and play more secret with me. Will you come now, Angel? We can go up to the nursery and lock the door; there is no one to find us," Tina urged.
But Angel could only shake her head, not daring to let the little girl see into her face.
Nevertheless, outside her own bedroom door she had to meet an even greater strain upon her nerves. For there stood Faith Barton in a pretty house dress and with a box of candy in her hands.
"May I come in and talk to you for a little while, Angel?" she asked, hesitating the least little bit. "Kenneth has just sent me a note and a box of candy, saying that he cannot keep his engagement with me tonight. He is so dreadfully busy, poor fellow! I don't believe Governor Graham works one-half so hard. So I thought maybe you would let me stay with you, as I am rather lonely. Besides, Angel, there isn't any sense in your treating me so coldly as you have lately. If I am doing wrong in keeping my engagement a secret, I am doing wrong, that's all. But I don't think you ought to be unkind to me. If I have been hateful to you about anything, truly I am sorry. You know I have always been awfully fond of you, dear, and wanted to be your friend ever so much more than you ever wished to be mine."
But instead of answering Faith, the other girl had to push by her almost rudely, stammering:
"I can't talk to you now, Faith. I've got the headache. I'm not very well; I must lie down."
Then with Faith standing almost on her threshold, resolutely Angel closed the door in her face.
If there was one person above all others at this moment with whom she could not bear to talk it was Faith Barton.