"Miss Shaw, you told me when you were last here that your time was not wholly your own. Does that mean that you are employed at indeterminate hours? I ask this in reference to future work, of course."
Betty nodded, and moistened her lips nervously.
"I did most of this translating at night."
"Ah! You are free, then, in the evenings? What is the nature of your work, if I may ask? Are you a teacher?"
A knock upon the door saved her from an immediate reply. A uniformed attendant entered and to him Herbert Ross entrusted the manuscript with instructions to take it to Professor Carmody. When the door had closed once more he turned to her inquiringly, and noted a swift pallor which seemed to have blotted all the wind-blown color from her face.
"You teach?" he repeated.
Betty shook her head. She dared not risk his asking where she taught if she took refuge in that evasion. The truth, or at least as much of it as was possible under the circumstances, would be safest.
"I am a—a visiting secretary."
"Indeed. That explains your presence on the North Drive the other day when you literally ran into me." His lips relaxed. "You told me you were late for an appointment, I remember. You are not living at present at the address which you gave me, Miss Shaw."
It was neither question nor accusation, but a mere statement of fact casually uttered, and yet a bomb-shell could not more effectively have stunned the girl. Could her former landlady have betrayed her? Her head whirled and it seemed another voice than hers which replied quietly: