"I am very busy, as you see." She took up her pen suggestively. "Mrs. Atterbury will expect me to have finished with her letters——"
"Busy? By Jove, I should think you were! What an industrious little person! Our charming hostess certainly believes in Satan's influence over idle hands, and has guarded you well against him." He reached down deliberately and picked up one of the letters. "Quite distinctive, your handwriting; like your personality, it baffles by its lucidity."
Betty's quick eye had followed the action and noted the purpose beneath his studied carelessness.
"Give me that letter, please." She spoke courteously, but there was a hint of underlying firmness in her tone.
"But there is no harm." He smiled. "Surely you know that Mrs. Atterbury consults me about all her affairs. Whatever you may write for her, I may read."
"That is for Mrs. Atterbury to say," retorted Betty, flushing with resentment at the man's insolence. "I will ask her on her return. Meanwhile, her correspondence is in my charge."
Wolvert shrugged and the smile changed to a snarl which showed his long, white teeth like suddenly bared fangs, but the letter fluttered from his fingers to the desk.
"Mrs. Atterbury is to be congratulated on her choice of a secretary. Your honesty exceeds your tact, my dear young lady. You are inexperienced and in a strange position; do not handicap yourself by making enemies. A friend at court might be very useful to you, more useful than you can realize."
He had bent still lower, until his dark saturnine face was within a few inches of her own, and he spoke with calculated significance. For the first time a little shudder of fear swept over her, but she met his eyes calmly.
"I have need of no one's friendship, Mr. Wolvert, on the score of usefulness, for I ask no favors and grant none. Mrs. Atterbury is my employer and I serve her interests."