There was a note of studied intent in his tone which held her as much as the choice of phrase piqued her curiosity.
"What do you mean, Mr. Wolvert? What could I tell you?"
He shrugged, laughing lightly.
"Why you are always so still, for one thing, like a little mouse. Your silence intrigues me. Why your glance is always so distrait as if you were listening to a far-off voice." He knelt upon the chair his arms folded across its back and brought his dark face close to hers. "Perhaps you will tell me also why your smile is so sad and so bitter. What has life taught you, Little Mouse?"
"To keep my own counsel, Mr. Wolvert." Betty retreated a step or two, but her eyes met his gravely. "To walk warily, and to do my appointed work."
"That is a wise creed." He seemed to muse aloud. "But is this your appointed work? To write at another's dictation, to fetch and carry, to serve and wait and to be finally dismissed! You are so demure, so docile, so perfectly in the picture, that I sometimes wonder if you are not playing a part."
He paused and she waited breathlessly seeking to read in his sardonic smile how much of serious purpose lay behind the facetious drawl.
"Your work is still new to you, but are you content?" He rose and strode around the chair to face her. His manner had changed and the words fell in a rapid, insistent undertone from his lips. "Will you be satisfied always to stay in the background, to occupy the extra chair, to be commanded when you might command? You have too much intelligence to be without ambition, too much common sense to work for a mere pittance when you might share, too much personality to remain a nonentity. You are quick-witted and discreet, you would go far if you were shown the way, and I——"
"Jack!" Madame Cimmino's querulous voice sounded from the stairs, and Betty shrank guiltily. Wolvert straightened and uttered an oath beneath his breath, but the next instant the little mocking smile was curling about his lips.
"Ah, Speranza! Now that I have ceased torturing the piano, you come forth from your refuge! I have been trying to beguile Miss Shaw from her duty and succeeded only in boring her. Come down and tell me how you liked my concerto; you must have heard it for I thundered it to the gods."