Yet there was an air of constraint in his very tone.
"Do you know," she flashed, "I can't help feeling that you are so brilliant—you must be something more than you seem."
Locke suppressed a quick look of surprise. Was she trying to worm some secret from him? He masked his face cleverly.
"Indeed, you must be imagining things," he replied, quietly, turning and strolling toward the window of his laboratory.
The moment his back was turned Zita picked up the photograph of Eva on the desk. For a moment she stood glaring at it jealously.
Out of the window Locke smiled. For, down on the gravel path, walking slowly toward the gate to the Brent Rock grounds, he could see Eva and Davis.
The smile faded into a scowl. He had seen a young man enter the gate. It was Paul Balcom, son of Herbert Balcom, and Paul was engaged to Eva—thus giving Balcom a stronger hold over Brent.
Locke knew enough about Paul to dislike him thoroughly and to distrust him. Had Locke been able to see over the hedge he would have confirmed his suspicions. For Paul had actually driven up to Brent Rock in the runabout of as notorious a woman as could have been found in the night life of the city—one known as De Luxe Dora in the unsavory half-world in which both were leaders. Had his dictagraph been extended to the hedge he would have heard her voice rasp at Paul:
"Your father may make you pay attention to this girl, Paul, but remember—you had not better double cross me."
Paul's protestations of underworld fidelity, would have added to Locke's fury.