Olsen looked at him with surprise, and Kit saw he had not expected his offer to be refused. The fellow had a cynical distrust of human nature that had persuaded him Kit could not resist the temptation; his shallow cleverness sometimes misled him and had done so when he took it for granted that Kit was Adam's clerk.
"You don't mean you're going to turn my offer down?" Olsen said sharply.
"You force me. I can't decide just yet."
Olsen hesitated, knitting his brows. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "that's ridiculous! The thing will cost you nothing, and I'll come up a thousand dollars. You ought to see you must accept."
"I don't see," Kit replied as carelessly as he could, and got up. "Since you can't wait, I understand the matter's off."
He went away, and glancing back as he crossed the street, saw that Olsen's pose was curiously fixed and he seemed to be gazing straight in front. Some of the customers now left the café and Kit lost sight of him. The moon was high and clear, but the black shadows of the trees fell upon the walk through the alameda and there were not many people about. Kit would sooner not have crossed the alameda, although this was his nearest way, but thought he had better do so. Olsen might be watching, and Kit did not want the fellow to imagine he was afraid, since it would indicate that he knew the importance of his refusal. Yet he was afraid, and it cost him something of an effort to plunge into the gloom.
CHAPTER VI
THE PRESIDENT'S WATCHERS
When Kit was half way across the alameda he stopped and looked about. Dark trees rose against the sky; he could smell the eucalyptus and their thin shadows covered the ground with a quivering, open pattern. There was a pool of moonlight, and farther on the solid, fan-shaped reflections of palms. Nobody was near him, although he heard voices across the alameda, and he stood for a few moments, thinking, while his heart beat.
Since he had refused Olsen's offer, caution was advisable, because Kit felt sure the fellow had expected him to agree, and it was obvious that he knew enough to make him dangerous. He distrusted Olsen, who was not a native American, and probably not a Norwegian, as he pretended. There was a mystery about his employers, but Kit suspected that they were Germans, and as a rule the latters' commercial intrigues were marked by an unscrupulous cunning of which few of their rivals seemed capable. This was admitting much, since the foreign adventurers did not claim high principles.