"There has been something on your mind recently, hasn't there, Angel, something you have not cared to confide to me?" She stopped, for her remark was half a statement and half a question.
However, Angel nodded agreement.
"Well, I am sorry, but I don't seem to be worthy of any one's confidence these days," Betty continued, trying to speak lightly. "However, if any one wishes to know where I have gone, dear, please say that Meg Emmet and I are driving together and that we are to have tea with old Professor Everett." And the next moment Betty Graham had disappeared down the steps.
Still Angel stood in the same place and in the same position.
Surely Betty was being kept in the dark if she did not dream of the trouble that had been hovering over the Governor's office for several weeks. Several important state papers had been misplaced, lost or stolen. No one knew what had become of them, yet on them a great deal depended. They were the proof that the Governor required for exposing certain men whom he believed dishonest. It was absolutely necessary that they should be found.
Summoning her courage, Angel knocked timidly at the Governor's study door. It was in front of this same door that she had watched the guests at the Inaugural Ball some weeks before. Of course it was absurd for her to be frightened at the Governor's having sent for her. She was too insignificant a person even to be questioned in regard to the lost papers, as she was only one of the unimportant stenographers at the Capitol and was only occasionally asked to do any of the Governor's private work.
Anthony was sitting with his desk littered with papers when Angel walked timidly in. She thought he looked rather old and tired and stern for so young a man. But he was always very polite and at once got up and offered her a chair.
"I am sorry to disturb you out of office hours like this, Angel," he began kindly. "I know it is Saturday afternoon and a half holiday, but I thought perhaps we could talk something over better here at home than at the office. One is so constantly interrupted there."
Angel made a queer little noise in her throat which she believed to have sounded like "Yes."
Of course the Governor was going to dismiss her from her position. She was not a particularly good stenographer, not half so fast as many of the girls, although she had tried to be thorough. But then she had no real talent for office work and of course there was no reason why she should continue to hold her position because she was a friend of the family. Positively Angel was beginning to feel sorry for the Governor's embarrassment and already had made up her mind to try and get some other kind of work. She would not stay on and be dependent.