He looked up suddenly, as though a new truth had just struck home with him. For the first time, all that evening, his face was ingenuous.
“I know what’s behind me,” went on the woman. “There’s no use digging that up. And there’s no use digging up excuses for it. But there are excuses—good excuses, or I’d never have gone through what I have, because I feel I wasn’t made for it. I’m too big a coward to face what it leads to. I can look ahead and see through things. I can understand too easily.” She came to a stop, and sat back, with one white hand on either arm of the chair. “And I’m afraid to go on. I want to begin over. And I want to begin on the right side!”
He sat pondering just how much of this he could believe. But she disregarded his veiled impassivity.
“I want you to take Picture 3,970 out of the Identification Bureau, the picture and the Bertillon measurements. And then I want you to give me the chance I asked for.”
“But that does not rest with me, Miss Verriner!”
“It will rest with you. I couldn’t stool with my own people here. But Wilkie knows my value. He knows what I can do for the service if I’m on their side. He could let me begin with the Ellis Island spotting. I could stop that Stockholm white-slave work in two months. And when you see Wilkie to-morrow you can swing me one way or the other!”
Copeland, with his chin on his bony breast, looked up to smile into her intent and staring eyes.
“You are a very clever woman,” he said. “And what is more, you know a great deal!”
“I know a great deal!” she slowly repeated, and her steady gaze succeeded in taking the ironic smile out of the corners of his eyes.
“Your knowledge,” he said with a deliberation equal to her own, “will prove of great value to you—as an agent with Wilkie.”