"Too good, dear. I should often want advice, and ask it, but that I fear hurting you by not following it. I must go my own way."
"Of course you must, but I was just leading up to this question: What in the world do you want of Mr. Litizki this evening?"
"I hardly know myself, dear; but if that 'second driver' calls, I hope to make Mr. Litizki useful. Will that do?"
It had to, for Clara fell to thinking, and her cousin saw that questions would be irritating.
Mr. Pembroke sent word from his office that he should not come to dinner, and he had not arrived when the servant announced a caller, and handed a card to Clara. It was Poubalov.
"I suppose," said Clara, showing not the least surprise, "that I'd better see him alone. Will you wait here" (they were in the dining-room), "in case I should want you?"
Poubalov smiled and his face looked almost attractive as he rose and bowed when Clara entered the drawing-room. At that instant Clara felt that but for his self-confessed methods of deceit, she could have trusted him, and this in spite of the black pictures that Litizki and Paul Palovna had drawn of him.
"I am delighted, Miss Hilman," he said, "to observe that you endure your sorrow and your remarkable work so well."
"I am told that nothing escapes you," replied Clara, "and so I suppose you know all about my search for the driver of Mr. Strobel's second carriage."
"Miss Clara," said a servant at the hall door, "a man who says his name is Billings wishes to see you."