Again Grip looks about him, and then steps toward the cabinet near the window.
“What’s this,” he asks, with his hand upon the closed door. “Will it hold me?”
“Yes,” replies Alan; “that will hold you.” And he pulls the bell.
“There’s no resisting Fate,” he mutters to himself. “At least that fellow shall not see me flinch again, let Leslie entangle me as she may, and as she doubtless will.”
And then there tingled in his veins a new sensation—a burning desire to seize that most impertinent, vulgar trail-hunter, who was now tugging away at his cabinet door, and send him crashing headlong through the window into the street below.
“Ask Mrs. Warburton if she will grant me a few moments of her time,” he said to the servant who appeared at the door, which Alan did not permit him to open more than half way. And then he turned his attention to Mr. Grip.
That individual, still tugging unsuccessfully at the door of the cabinet, has grown impatient.
“It’s locked!” he says, with an angry snap.
“No,”—Alan strides toward him—“it is not locked.” And he adds his strength to that of Mr. Grip.
A moment the door hesitates; then it yields with a suddenness which causes Alan to reel, and flies open.