"I'll set the whole swarm on the case. But if you will tell me the truth, you will be quite safe."
"The cause of literature might influence me were it not that I fear to be thought a coward—by my fair blackmailer."
"Oh! How dare you? Why, I don't want your secret to use against you. I thought I explained—how dare you!"
"I humbly beg pardon. Perhaps as it is such a new and flattering variety, it deserves a new name. I suppose the legal mind becomes hopelessly automatic in its deductions—"
"Oh, good night!"
They were at the Crumley gate. Rush opened it and passed in behind her. "I think I too will call on Miss Crumley," he said. "I have been too busy to call on any one for weeks, but to-night I must take a rest, and I can imagine no rest so complete as an evening in Miss Crumley's studio. I see a light in there—let us go round and not disturb Mrs. Crumley."
CHAPTER XXVI
Miss Austin remained but a few moments in the studio. She was embarrassed and angry, and Rush was not the sole object of her wrath: she anathematised herself not only for permitting her literary enthusiasm to carry her to the point of attempting coercion and running the risk of being called bad names by an expert in crime, but for speaking out impulsively in the first place and throwing her cards on the table. It had been her intention to cultivate the wretch's acquaintance and lead him on with excessive subtlety; but he had proved impervious to her maidenly hints that she would like to know him better; equally so to her boyish invitation to come over some evening and meet a number of the newspaper girls who were all fighting for his client. Fifteen minutes alone with him in the quiet streets of Elsinore at night was an opportunity that might never come again, and she had surrendered to impulse.