“I’ll prove it.”
“Introduce me.”
“It isn’t necessary; besides,” he sneered, “she’s particular who she knows.”
“Not very,” Bruce drawled, “or she wouldn’t be here with you.” He added obstinately: “That’s Slim’s sister.”
Helen came from the cloak room and stopped short at seeing Bruce and Sprudell in conversation. Certainly this was an evening of surprises.
“Are you ready, Miss Dunbar?” Sprudell placed loud emphasis upon the name.
She nodded.
Sprudell, who was walking to meet her, glanced back at Bruce with a smile of malice but it was wasted upon Bruce, who was looking at the girl. Why should there be that lurking horror and hostility in her eyes? What had Sprudell told her? On a sudden desperate impulse and before Sprudell could stop him, he walked up to her and asked doggedly, though his temerity made him hot and cold:
“Why do you look at me as if I were an enemy? What has Sprudell been telling you?”
“I forbid you to answer this fellow—” Sprudell’s voice shook and his pink face had again taken on the curious chalkiness of color which it became under stress of feeling. Forgetting prudence, his deferential pose, forgetting everything that he should have remembered in his rage at Bruce’s hardihood, and the fear of exposure, he shook his finger threateningly before Helen’s face.