The professor raised his glass with shaking fingers.
“Elizabeth knows what is best,” he declared, “I am sure that Elizabeth knows what is best, but I, too, am beginning to wish that she would go away. Last night we met him at Walter Crease's.”
Once more he turned a little nervously towards Tavernake, who was looking down into the body of the restaurant with immovable face.
“We tried to persuade him then to go away. He is really in rather a dangerous position here. Jimmy Post has sworn that he will not be taken back to New York, and there are one or two others—a pretty desperate crew. We tried last night to reason with Pritchard.”
“It was no good?” she whispered.
“No good at all,” the professor answered, drily. “Perhaps, if we had not been interrupted, we might have convinced him.”
“Tell me about it,” she begged.
The professor shook his head. Tavernake still had that air of paying no attention whatever to their conversation.
“It is not for you to know about, my dear,” he concluded. “You have chosen very wisely to keep out of these matters. Elizabeth has such wonderful courage. My own nerve, I regret to say, is not quite what it was. Waiter, I will take a liqueur of the old brandy in a large glass.”
The brandy was brought, but the professor seemed haunted by memories and his spirits never wholly returned. Not until the lights were turned down and Tavernake had paid the bill, did he partially recover his former manner.