“Yes; what of him?” I laughed. “He is well on his way to California,—and without you!”
She spoke hurriedly, eagerly, bending toward me.
“No—you don’t know—you don’t understand—he’s here; he abandoned his California trip at Chicago; he telegraphed me to expect him—here—to-night! You must go at once,—at once!”
“Ah, but you can’t frighten me,” I said, trying to realize just what a meeting with Pickering in that house might mean.
“No,”—she looked anxiously about,—”they were to arrive late, he and the Taylors; they know the Armstrongs quite well. They may come at any moment now. Please go!”
“But I have only a few minutes myself,—you wouldn’t have me sit them out in the station down town? There are some things I have come to say, and Arthur Pickering and I are not afraid of each other!”
“But you must not meet him here! Think what that would mean to me! You are very foolhardy, Mr. Glenarm. I had no idea you would come—”
“But you wished to try me,—you challenged me.”
“That wasn’t me,—it was Olivia,” she laughed, more at ease, “I thought—”
“Yes, what did you think?” I asked. “That I was tied hand and foot by a dead man’s money?”