“I can count my friends, the real ones, on one hand, I’m afraid,” said Gordon, with a good-humored smile; “and Mrs. Higgins surely is the thumb.”
“I am glad you smiled,” said Louise. “That would have sounded so bitter if you had not.”
“I couldn’t help smiling. You—you have such a way, Miss Dale.”
It was blunt but it rang true.
“It is true, though, about my friends. If I could convict—Jesse Black, for instance,—a million friends would call me blessed. But I can’t do it alone. They will not do it; they will not help me do it; they despise me because I can’t do it, and swear at me because I try to do it—and there you have the whole situation in a nutshell, Miss Dale.”
The sun struck across her face. He reached over and lowered the blind.
“Thank you. But it is ‘’vantage in’ now, is it not? You will get justice before Uncle Hammond.”
Unconsciously his shoulders straightened.
“Yes, Miss Dale, it is ‘’vantage in.’ One of two things will come to pass. I shall send Jesse Black over or—” he paused. His eyes, unseeing, were fixed on the gliding landscape as it appeared in rectangular spots through the window in front of them.
“Yes. Or—” prompted Louise, softly.