"I think the same as it has been." Then, looking down at her pretty hands in her lap, she half murmured, "Such a man does not change much."
This admission sounded to me like a cannon shot and I immediately asked:
"You say that your relations with him are the same as always, but you do not say what they were."
This time she looked down at the toe of a very small, neat shoe which she raised slightly to contemplate. She remained silent for some moments, the veins in her forehead swelling until they showed blue through her delicate skin.
"I—I—would like to see him punished—it seems to me that is what you want to know," she said in a low voice in which I thought there was resentment, but whether directed against me, Becker or some one else I could not determine. "I would do anything to have him punished," she added with suppressed emphasis.
"Miss Bascom, what are your relations with Chief Clerk Burrell?" I asked suddenly.
Taken completely unawares from this quarter, she drew a very short but deep breath, recovering quickly.
"They—well—I know Mr. Burrell," she admitted slowly.
"You have carried on quite a flirtation with him?"
"Yes—of course, you do not know—it would be hard to make you understand——"