For a moment he lost control of himself.
“Why Mr. Orden?” he demanded passionately. “He is the youngest member of the Council. He knows nothing of our negotiations with Freistner. Surely I am the person with whom you should communicate?”
“It will be very late to-night,” she reminded him, “and Mr. Orden is my personal friend—outside the Council.”
“And am I not?” he asked fiercely. “I want to be. I have tried to be.”
She appeared to find his agitation disconcerting, and she withdrew a little from the yellow-stained fingers which had crept out towards hers.
“We are all friends,” she said evasively. “Perhaps—if there is anything important, then—I will come, or send for you.”
He rose to his feet, less, it seemed, as an act of courtesy in view of her departure, than with the intention of some further movement. He suddenly reseated himself, however, his fingers grasped at the air, he became ghastly pale.
“Are you ill, Mr. Fenn?” she exclaimed.
He poured himself out a glass of water with trembling fingers and drank it unsteadily.
“Nerves, I suppose,” he said. “I’ve had to carry the whole burden of these negotiations upon my shoulders, with very little help from any one, with none of the sympathy that counts.”