"How are you?" said he. "You want to see me?"
"Well, for a moment, if you can spare the time—on business."
"Is it about my letter to Carlin?"
Ruston nodded. Mrs. Cormack kept a close watch.
"I—I can't alter that," said Harry, in a confused way. "Sir George is so crippled now, so much of the work falls on me; I have really no time."
"You might have left us your name."
"I couldn't do that, could I? Suppose you came to grief?" and he laughed uncomfortably.
Willie Ruston was afflicted by a sense of weakness—a vulnerability new in his experience—forbidding him to be urgent with the renegade. Had Carlin been present, he would have stood astounded at his chief's tonguetiedness. Mrs. Cormack smiled at it, and her smile, caught in a swift glance by Ruston, spurred him to a voluble appeal, that sounded to himself hollow and ineffective. It had no effect on Harry Dennison, who said little, but shook his head with unfailing resolution. Mrs. Cormack could not resist the temptation to offer matters an opportunity of development.
"But what does Maggie say to your desertion?" she asked in an innocently playful way.
Harry seemed nonplussed at the question, and Willie Ruston interposed.