The girl herself met his eyes almost fiercely, reminding him vaguely of the look with which a lioness might defend her threatened young.
"I've done nothing yet," she declared, "but I mean to—I mean to if it takes every single hour I have to live." Then her manner changed suddenly, and she impressed him as melting from her hard reserve. "Oh, she tells me that you've met Laura Wilde!" she said.
The sacred name struck him, after his impassioned dreaming, like a sharp blow between the eyes, and he met the girl's animated gesture with a look of blank aversion.
"I've met her—yes," he answered coldly.
But her enthusiasm was at white heat, and he saw what he had thought mere prettiness in her warm to positive beauty. "And you adore her work as I do?" she exclaimed.
After a moment's hesitation his ardour flashed out to meet her own. "Oh, yes, I adore her work and her!" he said.
CHAPTER VI
SHOWS THAT MR. WORLDLY-WISE-MAN MAY BELONG TO EITHER SEX
Several afternoons later Trent was to have further light thrown on the character of Christina Coles by a chance remark of Roger Adams, into whose office he had dropped for a moment as he was on his way to make his first call upon Mrs. Bridewell.