"Armstrong is going to attack you, I tell you. He's not the man to fire unless he has a shot in his gun—and powder behind it."
"But he can't. He knows nothing against me." And Trafford seated himself as if he were squelching his own doubts and fears.
"He knows as much about the inside of your company as you know about the inside of his. You can assume that."
Trafford shifted miserably in his chair.
"What reason have you to suppose that as keen a man as he is would not make it his business to find out all about his rivals?"
"What if he does know?" blustered Trafford. "To hear you talk, my dear, you'd think I ran some sort of—of a"—with a nervous little laugh—"an unlawful resort."
"I know you wouldn't do anything you thought was wrong," replied his wife, in a strained, insincere voice. "But—sometimes the public doesn't judge things fairly."
"People who have risen to our position must expect calumny." He was of the color of fear and his fingers and his mouth and his eyelids were twitching.
"What difference would it make to Atwater and Langdon, if you were disgraced?" she urged. "Mightn't they even profit by it?"
At this he jumped up, and began to pace the floor. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" he cried. "To put suspicion in my head against these honorable men!"