On the spur of the moment she half turned and raised her hand. But the voice of the man opposite grew instantly so full of menace that she felt a little frightened.
“Can that, Miss Durrance, or I’ll have to make it hot for you.”
II
THE force of the threat made the girl withdraw her hand. She met the laugh which followed with a look of defiance, but she had not art nor cleverness enough to conceal the fact that she was rattled. Her cheeks grew scarlet. Some very white and even teeth bit savagely into her lower lip.
The man, watching narrowly, was obviously pleased with the effect.
“Got me now, hey, Miss Durrance?”
“I don’t know who you are,” was the answer of Miss Durrance. A brave and steady answer it was. “And I don’t want to know anyway.”
The look in the girl’s eyes, the note in her voice, appeared sharply to recall the man opposite to a sense of his position. After all, it would not do to carry the thing too far. It was as if he suddenly remembered that in an especial degree he was a guardian of the public interest. When he spoke again his voice had consideration, even a certain kindness.
“I’m one of Tillotson’s men.”
Already her startled mind had flown to that conclusion. But neither the man’s change of tone nor her own insight softened the steely hostility of her eyes. She lifted a fighting chin to rake him with a glance of grey fire. “I’m a very respectable girl.” The note was deeper than she had touched yet. “I don’t know you an’ I don’t want to know you. Cops are no class anyway.”