"What is the matter?" she demanded, with desperate boldness. "You.... Something must have gone wrong?"
He started back as if she had struck him a blow. "It is nothing. I am not feeling well. That Serbian relief is getting on my nerves.... Money, money pouring in ... and they do not care about the cause, either! It is just the fashion, that is all!... Bah! Sometimes I hate the whole pretense!... I would like to find one honest person!"
She shrank back. He walked past her quickly and he began to descend the stairs. Half-way down he halted and called up to her:
"Your friend, Mrs. Condor, was in to see me to-day.... She will be here to-morrow to talk over the program."
Claire ran to the head of the stairs. But the door slammed decisively.
"Your friend, Mrs. Condor," Claire mused. "What a nasty tone!"
CHAPTER XII
Danilo did not come home that night, but Claire was not disturbed. Morning brought the usual sanity. She was convinced now that Danilo's manner of the night before was more a matter of her own mood and interpretation than anything else. But she was determined on one thing: she would ask Mrs. Condor quite frankly to say nothing to Danilo about Stillman. Claire was still undecided about the whole question. She had seen that Stillman was against the fine-spun theories back of her silence, but she had not yet acquired the masculine directness of conduct that made it easy for her to be either ruthless or perfectly just.
Mrs. Condor came in shortly after two o'clock. She was dressed with extraordinary lack of spirit for her, in a black street dress that just escaped being dowdy, and her face was incased in a thick, ugly veil.