“I haven’t considered them—I am only thinking of myself,” Gaunt answered drily. “Perhaps you will be quiet for a few minutes.”
Drake watched him eagerly, and when the minutes passed he grew despondent for he recognized that he had set a difficult task, and one that would require courage of a high order to carry out.
“Surely I was not mistaken in this man,” he told himself hopefully.
Gaunt rose and crossed over to a cabinet from which he took a cigar. Still he did not speak and the silence continued for some time.
“You are not going to draw back?” Drake cried in desperation.
“No. I will accompany you to the meeting.”
“Thank God! And you will bear witness to——”
“I will make no promise,” Gaunt interrupted him quietly.
Drake possessed tact and he recognized that it was not the moment to apply pressure. If a decision had been arrived at, nothing he could now say would change it, and he must possess his soul in patience.
The fact that Lady Mildred and her sister were to accompany them disturbed him greatly, for it was but natural to think that their presence might cause Gaunt to modify any statement that he intended to make.