Toomey deliberated a moment:
“I believe her innocent, myself,” he finally replied.
“So she grew up out there in the hills without any friends or social life,” Prentiss commented, musingly.
“There was always a camptender and a sheepherder or two about,” Toomey answered with slurring significance.
Prentiss brushed the ashes from his cigar.
“And Prouty had no sympathy with her in her loneliness, but considered her a legitimate target—somebody that everybody 'took a fall out of,' you say?”
There was a quality in his voice now which made Toomey glance at the man quickly, but it was so elusive, so faint, that he could not be certain; and reassured by his impassive face he went on:
“Why shouldn’t they? What would anybody waste sympathy on her kind for?” His thin lips curled contemptuously.
Again Prentiss sat in the stillness in which not a muscle or an eyelid moved. He seemed even not to breathe until he turned with an impressive deliberateness and subjected Toomey to a scrutiny so searching and prolonged that Toomey colored in embarrassment, wondering the while as to what it meant.
“I presume, Mr. Toomey,” Prentiss finally inquired with a careful politeness he had not shown before, “that it would mean considerable to you in the way of commissions on the sale of stock if this project went through?”