"Of course!" Thorpe's face showed surprise at the question. "Why should I not? I rescued the torn sketches from the waste-basket, and I can copy them. I've a good chance at it, I think."
"Now that Blair's out of the running?"
Thorpe looked up angrily, but as suddenly he became calm. "No, Mr. Crane," he said, "not because of that. But because Gilbert can't steal my plans."
"Unpleasant talk, Mac. I don't like that."
"But it's true. Blair did take my ideas——"
"Consciously?"
"I think so. Why, he incorporated in his design, a particular bit of drawing that I had invented and shown to him only a day or two before."
"You must see, McClellan, that your saying that puts a bad face on the whole affair?"
"I suppose it does," and the man again relapsed into moody silence. "Oh, well,—it's all in a lifetime."
"A lifetime that has just ended,—or one still being lived?" Benjamin Crane spoke like an avenging justice, and there was no mistaking his meaning.