“And stronger enemies,” finished Barclay, softly, meeting the professor’s penetrating gaze for but a moment.
“True,” agreed Norcross. “The Pattersons have a quarrelsome trait. Patterson’s sister once told me that she always kept alive her brother’s animosities.”
“The hateful woman!” broke in Mrs. Ogden, with more vehemence than the occasion seemed to require, and at her husband’s quick frown she modified her tone. “It’s a wonder Henrietta Patterson didn’t ruin her brother’s political career.”
“You knew Miss Patterson then?” asked Barclay.
“Yes, when visiting Ethel’s mother,” indicating the girl, and Barclay for the first time that evening addressed Ethel directly.
“Did you know Miss Patterson intimately?” he inquired.
“No, only slightly,” Ethel broke off her three-cornered conversation with Takasaki and Walter Ogden. “Miss Patterson was a recluse, and went very little into society. She died in Paris, last winter.”
Takasaki’s twinkling black eyes shot from one to the other, and seizing the slight pause following Ethel’s last remark, he turned to his hostess.
“My wife and I, we so sorry for the break-up of your dinner the most delightful,” he began. “We hope for your honorable presence soon with us.”
Mrs. Ogden beamed with pleasure, and launched into a brisk conversation with Takasaki in which the other men joined. From the depths of her large Empire chair, Ethel listened to Takasaki’s soft monotonous voice, the deeper intonations of Barclay and Norcross, and the heavy bass of Ogden, and a certain quality in their tones and their mannerisms impressed her. Outwardly perfectly friendly in their intercourse, there seemed to the listening girl, an under-current of distrust, of watchfulness totally lacking in past meetings between the four men. If mere suspicion of an alien hand having killed James Patterson could raise a barrier between the polished, educated Japanese gentleman and American men of his own class what would follow in the event of racial war; a war of yellow against white? Ethel caught her breath sharply, and drew her hand across her eyes as if dispelling a horrible vision.