But her serious, grave eyes did not respond to his flippancy.
"Macgowan was talking to me, Reese, just before that meeting here in the library. He went out of his way to say something to me that was quite needless. Now, it wasn't at all what he said, but what I could read in his mind as he said it that made me afraid of him. What he said, made me cry. What I could sense in his thought and his soul, frightened me!"
Armstrong was frowning. "Why, lady, this is the first time you ever mentioned such a thing! Surely Mac didn't—"
"He said nothing that was wrong, dear; but from that day I have feared him. Intuition, if you like. And now I want to warn you against him. That man is no friend of yours, Reese. He's using you for his own purposes. Don't trust him! Don't let him know your secrets! Be on your guard against him, always!"
Armstrong looked into her eyes, and for a moment her intense earnestness shook him to the very depths. Then his reason asserted itself. He remembered other things. Could this be a touch of jealousy? It could be nothing else.
"Dear lady," he said gently, clasping her hands in his, "I owe a great deal to Lawrence Macgowan. You don't ask that I break with him sharply, for no definite reason?"
"No, no!" she said, and caught her breath. "Oh, Reese! It's for your sake—that's all. I've nothing to go on. I can only feel, just as I have felt from the first, that there is something—something treacherous and deadly, in him! I don't want to make trouble between you. All I ask is that you be on your guard against him."
"Very well," said Armstrong quietly. "I'll remember the warning, Dot. More than that, I can't say now. I need Mac now more than ever, and can't afford to break with him. But I'll remember your words."
As she met her husband's intent gaze, Dorothy shivered slightly. Perhaps she realized how terribly unreasonable and baseless was her charge; perhaps she realized that Armstrong could not receive it as she imparted it—that he could not feel her aversion for Macgowan.
She knew that her warning was futile.