“What!” he ejaculated. He stared at her. “I don’t know what to make of you!” he cried in exasperation.
“Oh, yes you do,” she assured him sweetly, “for you’ve been trying to make very little of me.”
“Eh! See here, I half believe you don’t want my aid!” he blurted out.
Standing there above him, smiling down upon him, she could hardly resist telling him the truth—that sooner would she allow her right hand to be burnt off than to accept aid from a man who had flaunted and jeered at her lawyership—that it was her changeless determination not to tell him one single word about her plans—that it was her purpose to go silently ahead and let her success, should she succeed, be her reply to his unbelief. But she checked the impulse to fling the truth in his face—and instead continued to smile inscrutably down upon him.
“I hope that you will do all for my father, for the city, for your own election, that you can,” she said. “All I ask is that for the present I be allowed to handle the case by myself.”
The Court House tower tolled five. She held out to him a gloved hand.
“Good-by. I’m sorry I can’t invite you in,” she said lightly, and turned away.
He watched the slender figure go up the steps and into the jail, then turned and walked down the street—exasperated, puzzled, in profound thought.