Edwards was waiting for Stacey at the office. “By the Lord!” he cried, waving the paper in one hand and wringing Stacey’s hand with the other, “you did it! Damned if you didn’t! Now tell me: what did you do?”
“Why, I just emphasized the things father had already said and pointed out how much my father’s loyalty to Jeffries meant,” said Stacey innocently.
Edwards stared at him. “The hell you did!” he exclaimed. “Carroll, you did some sort of dirty work—awfully dirty work, I’ll bet!” And he grinned with delight.
“Now look here, Edwards,” said Stacey soberly, “if you ever suggest that to any one else, or if you even let on that I had anything to do in this business at all, you’ll make things awfully unpleasant for me. Honestly! That’s all I can tell you.”
“Well, I won’t, then. You can take my word for it.”
“Sit down,” said Stacey, dropping into a chair and lighting a cigarette.
“Can’t. Can’t possibly. I’ve got to get to work. Precious little I’ve done these last days.”
Nevertheless, Edwards lingered. His jubilant mood had passed now, and he looked at Stacey with a kind of awkward wistfulness.
“I say, Carroll!” he blurted out finally, “you remember that night of the Legion meeting a year and more ago?” Stacey nodded. “Well, then I felt the better man of us two—no, I don’t mean better—saner, perhaps. You were”—he puzzled—“sort of twisted.”
(“Twisted,” thought Stacey. Again that word.)