“Who?” was the mechanical response.
“Why, none other than the little Miss Mystery. Oh, yes, I know she is under a cloud—but I can get her off—I’m a bird of a lawyer, you know—and we’ll fix up all that. Then, I’ll elevate that little nonentity to the elevated position of the missus of Maurice Trask. Hey, my boy, how’s that?”
Had Lockwood’s calm not been habitual with him, he could scarcely have maintained it through this scene. As it was, he was a boiling, seething furnace inside him, but his judgment told him that any exhibition of surprise or annoyance would only irritate the other man without doing any good.
Moreover, if Trask were really a shrewd lawyer, and if he knew something that would make any trouble for Anita—and she had hinted that he did—then, Lockwood argued, he must keep friendly with Trask, at least until he found out more of the matter.
So he said, lightly, “Has the lady agreed?”
“Well—not yet; but—I say, Lockwood, you’re hit in that same direction, eh?”
“I admire Miss Austin very much, yes.”
“Well—you keep off—do you hear?”
“I hear,” said Lockwood, in his imperturbable way, but when Trask looked up and caught the cold stare of his secretary, he dropped the subject and returned to the books.
Since Doctor Waring’s death, Lockwood had formed the habit of going back to the Adams house for his luncheon. This, of course, in the hope of seeing something of Anita, and also, because his new employer preferred it that way.