Conkling felt almost sorry for her. She was plainly not a woman who could easily ask a favor, yet behind that grim front, for all its momentary embarrassment, lurked an equally grim purpose.
“And you’d like me to look them over and tell you what I consider they’re worth,” suggested her visitor—“what they’re worth from the New York dealer’s standpoint?”
She blinked her eyes like an old eagle, plainly disturbed by his slightly impatient short-cut to directness.
“It would be a great service,” she said out of the silence.
“On the contrary, it would be a great pleasure,” contended Conkling. “So what’s the matter with getting at it while the light’s still good?”
He was startled to see a ghost of a flush creep up into her faded cheeks.
“That would be impossible to-day,” she told him with something oddly akin to terror in the eyes which evaded his.
“Why not to-day?” he asked, intent on his study of her mysterious abashment.
“They will have to be prepared,” she replied, ill at ease.
“What do you mean by prepared?”