“You must understand, my dear lady——”
“I understand everything, Mr. Thorold, except your object in admitting me to the scene.”
“A whim!” cried Thorold vivaciously, “a freak of mine! Possibly due to the eternal and universal desire of man to show off before woman!”
The journalist tried to smile, but something in her face caused Thorold to run to a chiffonier.
“Drink this,” he said, returning with a glass.
“I need nothing.” The voice was a whisper.
“Oblige me.”
Miss Fincastle drank and coughed.
“Why did you do it?” she asked sadly, looking at the notes.
“You don’t mean to say,” Thorold burst out, “that you are feeling sorry for Mr. Bruce Bowring? He has merely parted with what he stole. And the people from whom he stole, stole. All the activities which centre about the Stock Exchange are simply various manifestations of one primeval instinct. Suppose I had not—had not interfered. No one would have been a penny the better off except Mr. Bruce Bowring. Whereas——”