"Haven't you heard that that investigation is coming?"
He gave a superior, knowing smile. "Those things are always fixed up. There's a public side, but it's as unreal as a stage play. Fosdick controls this particular show."
"So I hear," said she, with bitter irony. "And he purposes to throw you to the wild beasts—you and me."
Siersdorf laughed indulgently. "My dear sister," he said, "don't bother your head about it." The idea seemed absurd to him: Fosdick sacrifice him, when they were such friends!—it was an insult to Fosdick to entertain the suspicion. "When the proper time comes," he continued, "I shall be away on business—and the matter will be sidetracked, and nothing more will be said about me. Trust me. I know what I am about."
"Yes, you will be away," cried she, suddenly enlightened. "And the whole thing will be exposed, and they'll have their accounts so cooked that the guilt will all be on you. And before you can get back and clear yourself, you will be ruined—disgraced—dishonored."
The situation she thus blackly outlined was within the possibilities; her tone of certainty had carrying power. A chill went through him. "Ridiculous!" he protested loudly.
"You have put your honor in another man's keeping," she went on. "And that man is a thief."
"Narcisse!"
"A thief!" she repeated with emphasis. "They don't call each other thieves downtown. They've agreed to call themselves respectabilities and financiers and all sorts of high-flown names. But thieves they are, because they're loaded down with what don't belong to them, money they got away from other people by lying and swindling. Is your honor quite safe in the keeping of a thief?"
"Narcisse!" repeated Alois, wincing again at that terse, plain word, rough and harsh, an allopathic dose of moral medicine, undiluted, uncoated.