"You and I, Bruce Standing," he said in that clear, insolent voice of his, "have gone a long way beyond the point of shaking hands."
Standing frowned as he muttered:
"Don't be a young ass, Babe."
But Deveril only shook his head, retorting:
"I have come, according to promise, for a word with you. Suppose we make it snappy."
"The same little Baby Devil!" Standing jeered at him, making Deveril stiffen with that look of his eyes. "I'll give you a new dance tune before I'm through with you. Come ahead!"—and with a suddenness which took Lynette Brooke by surprise he struck back the door leading to the room where she was and led the way in, Deveril at his heels.
But, though there were three or four coal-oil lamps burning in the room which he had just quitted, there was but one here where she was. And because its chimney was smoky and the flame burned crookedly and she was in a dim corner, he could make nothing of the look of her. Had she remained perfectly still he would scarcely have noted her presence. But now she was suddenly impatient to be gone, and went hurrying to a door which led into a hallway, the hallway in turn leading to her room at the back of the house.
"A woman," growled Timber-Wolf disgustedly, getting only a glimpse of a hastily departing figure. "It begins to look as though a man couldn't pick him a spot in the wilderness that the female didn't crowd in."
Lynette heard, and knew with a flash of resentment that he did not care whether she had heard or not, and that with the last word he would be turning to Deveril and forgetting that he had seen her. She went slowly down the hall, three or four paces only. There she paused and lingered; it was no such pale incentive as curiosity which held her now, but a peculiar fascination. Two men like those two, by far the strongest-willed and most dynamic men she had ever known, with the business which lay between them, made her ignore and give no thought to the convention of shut ears against the talk of others. So she stood here in the dim hallway, poised for instant flight if need be to her own door, a couple of yards farther on.
"Now," said Deveril impatiently, "what is it?"