"Either you come or I'll force you. Why, you damned cur, do you want me to drag you in there by the collar?"
Slosson turned to the door without a word. Armstrong paused for an instant to grip the hand of Jimmy Wren, and to utter a quick word.
"Jimmy, you're all right! Watch out, now, that no warning message is sent Macgowan. I'll be back in a few minutes."
Dorothy was seated before the desk in Slosson's office. When the two men entered, she looked up at them; under her gaze, the sullen eyes of Slosson dropped.
"Our friend is going to tell us something, Dorothy." Armstrong motioned to a chair. "Sit down, Slosson."
The other man stole a half-frightened glance at him, flinching under the crisp asperity of the words. He was startled and perturbed at the very manner of Armstrong, which was all untouched by victory. The intoxication of that sweeping triumph in the other office had now gone entirely from him. No trace of emotion, of exultancy, of domination, showed in him. He was his usual cool self, as though this affair were of no very great import.
Yet to Slosson this imperturbable calm was terrible; behind it, he sensed an inexorable and frightful force which was moving to crush him. Despite his guilty conscience he did not entirely comprehend what was coming next. His own wretched blunders, the abject breakdown they had caused in Williams, his exposure at the hands of Jimmy Wren—all had left him confused and helpless. Behind his remnants of effrontery, he was conscious that he faced prison. All the fabric of his strutting and posturing had been stripped away. He beheld himself as these other people beheld him, and the reality staggered him.
"When I was away in Wilmington," said Armstrong, watching him closely, "you came one morning to my home. Suppose you relate what passed between you and Mrs. Armstrong."
A sudden pallor crept across the face of Slosson. According to the code by which men of his caliber lived and moved, he saw himself facing a retribution of swift and brutal personal violence—a bullet, perhaps. He knew no other code.
Then, as he hesitated, Dorothy spoke quietly. "I can tell you, Reese." Armstrong turned to her. He was conscious of a sense of relief in her manner, a gladness that everything at last was coming open before them. She went on, without heat: