"I am going to stay here. I'll be reasonably quiet, but that's the only compromise I'll agree to. Don't waste nerve force scolding me, father. You need to conserve your strength." And with the evident intention of making herself as inconspicuous as possible she took a low chair half hidden by the heavy curtain of the window. Burton could not help thinking how futile any attempt at obscurity on her part must always be. Her beauty lit up the shadowy corner as a jewel lights its case. He had to make a conscious effort to turn his eyes away.
Again the door opened and Henry entered. The contrast between his attitude and his sister's was striking. He entered hesitatingly, one would have said reluctantly, and his eyes were not lifted from the floor.
"Mother thought I ought to be present," he said in a low voice.
Dr. Underwood regarded him with a baffled look, and Burton understood and sympathized with his perplexity. He looked curiously at Henry himself. His youthful escapades, so out of the ordinary, had evidently made him something of a family problem.
"You might profitably take for an example your brother's ready obedience to a parent's wishes," the doctor said dryly. He spoke to Leslie, but it was Henry who winced at the jibe. His face darkened, and he shot an angry look at his father.
The tramping of feet in the hall announced the approach of the committee.
"Here they be," said Mrs. Bussey, opening the door, and herself entering at the head of the little procession of three men. Her lively interest in the affair was comically evident.
Dr. Underwood saved the situation from its awkwardness with a savoir faire which Burton could not too much admire.
"Good evening, gentlemen," he cried genially. "You are very welcome. You will excuse my remaining seated, I hope. I have sprained my ankle. Let me present you to my friend, Mr. Burton,--Mr. Hadley, who is one of our most distinguished citizens; Mr. Ralston, who forms the opinions of the public of High Ridge by virtue of his position as our leading editor; Mr. Orton Selby, who was the unhappy victim of the highway robbery of which you have heard and who is justifiably anxious to let no guilty man escape. Be seated, gentlemen."
Burton bowed, in acknowledgment of the several introductions. He was touched by the simple-heartedness of Dr. Underwood in presenting him so frankly as a "friend," and felt more bound by it to act the part of a friend than he could have been by any formal pledge. He took quick appraisal of the three committeemen. Hadley was evidently prosperous, pompous and much impressed with his own importance. Ralston had the keen eye and dispassionate smile of the experienced newspaperman, so accustomed to having today's stories contradicted by to-morrow's that he has learned to be slow about committing himself to any side. Selby he had already met! That Selby remembered the fact was quite evident from the look of surprise and suspicion which he cast upon Dr. Underwood's guest. A striking man he was, with a dark narrow face, and a nervous manner. His eye was so restless that it seemed continually flitting from one object to another. His lips were thin, and, in their spasmodic twitching, gave the same sense of nervous instability that his restless eyes conveyed. Burton had an impulse to pick him up and set him forcibly down somewhere, with an injunction to sit still.