She leant back against the edge of the desk, her hands holding the edge, and faced him without so much as a quaver.
“I do not like the police,” mused Kara, when there came a knock at the door.
Kara turned and opened it and after a low strained conversation he returned, closing the door and laid a paper of stamps on the girl's table.
“As I was saying, I do not care for the police, and I prefer my own method. In this particular instance the police obviously would not serve me, because you are not afraid of them and in all probability you are in their pay—am I right in supposing that you are one of Mr. T. X. Meredith's accomplices!”
“I do not know Mr. T. X. Meredith,” she replied calmly, “and I am not in any way associated with the police.”
“Nevertheless,” he persisted, “you do not seem to be very scared of them and that removes any temptation I might have to place you in the hands of the law. Let me see,” he pursed his lips as he applied his mind to the problem.
She half sat, half stood, watching him without any evidence of apprehension, but with a heart which began to quake a little. For three months she had played her part and the strain had been greater than she had confessed to herself. Now the great moment had come and she had failed. That was the sickening, maddening thing about it all. It was not the fear of arrest or of conviction, which brought a sinking to her heart; it was the despair of failure, added to a sense of her helplessness against this man.
“If I had you arrested your name would appear in all the papers, of course,” he said, narrowly, “and your photograph would probably adorn the Sunday journals,” he added expectantly.
She laughed.
“That doesn't appeal to me,” she said.