“I would like you to believe that, whatever was the result of what I did, I had no evil or selfish motive in doing it. Can you feel that much confidence in me, Miss Marne?”
She bent her eyes upon the desk for the moment of silence that followed his question and made effort to voice her reply in a cool, disinterested tone.
“I can understand that you might have been moved by a sense of duty toward the public welfare—if you believed in your own assertions. I gather from what you said just now that you wish to be considered Mr. Brand’s friend; but that sort of thing does not agree with my idea of the loyalty there should be between friends.”
His black brows drew together in a slight frown as he looked intently at her averted face. “Well,” he said, more slowly than he had previously spoken, “I shall not try to justify myself. I shall only repeat that my motive was neither selfish nor malicious. I had not thought particularly, in fact, I had not thought at all then, about the public side of it. I did it solely in the hope that it would have a good effect upon Felix.” He paused again for a moment and as she noted his familiar use of her employer’s name she thought that, after all, the relations between them must be intimate.
“But I hope,” he went on, his manner again brusque, “that you will free your mind from all suspicion as to my reasons for coming here today.”
She flushed and turned a little more away, and he smiled behind his hand as he stroked his short, thick, black mustache.
“I know already more about Felix Brand and his affairs than pleases me and I am just now much more interested in my own.”
She faced him with a sudden movement and asked sharply: “Do you know where he is?”
Her eyes caught an inscrutable change in his. Something almost like awe came into them and into his countenance as his gaze turned to the window and sought the blue and distant sky.