Neva lingered, though she could not trust herself to speak.
"You wouldn't think," Thomas went on, "that such things'd be done by such a company as——"
"Don't!" cried Neva, pressing her hands hysterically to her ears. "I mustn't hear what company it was!"
And she rushed from the car and fled into her apartment, all unstrung. At last, at last, she not merely knew but felt, and felt with all her sensitive heart, the miseries of thousands, of hundreds of thousands, out of which those "great men" wrought their careers—those "great men" of whom her friend Armstrong was one!
Trafford reached home at half past six and, following his custom, went directly to his dressing room. Instead of his valet, he found his wife—seated before the fire, evidently waiting for him. "Is the door closed?" she said. "And you'd better draw the curtain over it."
"Well, well," he cried, all cheerfulness. "What now? Have the servants left in a body?" It had been a banner day downtown, with several big nets he had helped to set filled to overflowing, and the fish running well at all his nets, seines, lines, and trap-ponds. He felt the jolly fisherman, at peace with God and man, brimming generosity.
"I want to talk to you about that investigation," said his wife in a tone that cleared his face instantly of all its sparkling good humor.
"Whatever started you in that direction?" he exclaimed. "Don't bother your head about it, my dear. There'll be no investigation. Not that I was afraid of it. Thank God, I've always tried to live as if each moment were to be my last."
"Mr. Atwater is going to attack Mr. Fosdick, isn't he?"
Trafford showed his amazement. "Why, where did you hear that?"