Neva came back. "Don't hesitate. I meant just what I said—anything."
Narcisse blurted it out: "Is Horace Armstrong a man who can be trusted? Is he straight?" Then, as Neva did not answer immediately, she hastened on, "Please forget what I asked you. It really doesn't matter, and——"
Neva interrupted her with a frank, friendly smile. "Don't be uneasy," she said. "He and I are excellent friends. He calls often. I don't know a thing about him in a business way. But— Well, Narcisse, I'm sure he'd not do anything small and mean."
"That's all I wished to know."
A few minutes after Neva left, Narcisse, white but calm, sent for her brother. "How deeply have you entangled yourself in those fraudulent vouchers?" she asked, when they were shut in together.
He lifted his head haughtily. "What do you mean, Narcisse?"
"As we are equal partners, I have the right to know all the affairs of the firm. I want to see the accounts of those insurance buildings, at once—and to know the exact truth about them."
"You left that matter entirely to me," replied he, sullen but uneasy. "I haven't time to-day to go into a mass of details. It'd be useless, anyhow. But—I do not like that word you used—fraudulent."
She waved her hand impatiently. "It's the word the public will use, whatever nice, agreeable expression for it you men of affairs may have among yourselves. Have you signed vouchers, as you said you were going to do?"
"Certainly. And, I may add, I shall continue to sign them."