Fessenden watched her. Without appearing to do so, he noted every expression that flitted across her baby face.
And he was greatly disturbed.
The night before he had paid slight attention to her. To be sure, Miss Van Norman had spoken her name in the afternoon, but it had meant little to him, and, thinking of her merely as Mrs. Carleton’s companion, or secretary, he wasn’t sure which, he had been conventionally polite and no more. But to-night she was a factor in the case, and must be reckoned with.
As Fessenden watched her, he saw, with a growing conviction, as sure as it was awful, that she was relieved at Miss Van Norman’s death.
Gentle, tender little girl as she seemed, it was nevertheless true that the removal of the obstacle between Carleton and herself gave her only joy. She tried to hide this. She cleverly simulated grief, horror, surprise, interest,—all the emotions called forth by the conversation, which unavoidably pursued only one course. In fact, Miss Burt took her cue every time from Mrs. Carleton, and expressed opinions that invariably coincided with hers.
It began to dawn upon Fessenden that the girl was unusually clever, the more so, he thought, that she was consciously concealing her cleverness by a cloak of demure innocence, and careful unostentation. Never did she put herself forward; never did she show undue interest in Schuyler, personally.
Fessenden reasoned that the game being now in her own hands, she could afford to stand back and await developments.
Then came the next thought: how came the game so fortuitously into her own hands? Was it, even indirectly, due to her own instigation?
“Pshaw!” he thought to himself. “I’m growing absurdly suspicious. I won’t believe wrong of that girl until I have some scrap of a hint to base it on.”
And yet he knew in his own heart if Dorothy Burt had wanted to connive in the slightest degree in the removal of her rival, she was quite capable of doing so, notwithstanding her very evident effect of pretty helplessness.