Hetty nodded her head sagely.
“Guess you’ve a place for me in that automobile, Poppa,” she said. “I’ll come with you to the office, wait while you get the papers, and go on with you to the Conference building—and while you’re there I’ll go on to see that doctor. I shall be back in time to pick you up before you are finished with your old Conference.”
Her father saw no objection to this, was in fact secretly glad to have her under his eye as long as possible.
“Mind, no tricks about the doctor!” he said, with an assumption of severity.
“Sure, Poppa!” was her equable reply.
A few minutes later saw them speeding through the keen air of a frosty morning toward Forsdyke’s office. But the interior of the limousine was warm, and Hetty, snug in her furs, looked a picture of young, healthy beauty, looked—— A memory came to Henry Forsdyke in a pang that brought a sigh. He thought of the Professor’s suggestion of last night. Of course, the whole thing was absurd!—but he wondered——
The car swung into the sidewalk in front of the Government building, stopped before the big doorway with the marble steps. Forsdyke got out.
“I shall be back in a few minutes,” he said.
Hetty watched him go across the pavement, ascend the marble steps. He looked neither to right nor left. Then who was that with him? Hetty felt her heart stop. Who was that who passed into the doorway with him? No one had been on the steps—she was suddenly sure of it. Yet—her heart began to pump again—certainly two figures had passed through the swing-doors! She sat chilled and paralyzed for the moment in which she visualized the memory of those two figures passing into the shadow of the interior—tried to think when she had first perceived the second. A certitude shot through her, a wild alarm.