"Didn't I meet you the other evening at the Annex?"
Boyd admitted the fact, with the air of one who exaggerates his interest in a trifling topic for the sake of conversation. He was beginning to be surprised at his own powers of dissimulation.
"And you were with George Balt?"
"Exactly. I picked him up on my way out from Nome; he was so thoroughly disgusted with Alaska that I helped him get back to the States."
Marsh's eyes gleamed at this welcome intelligence for certain misgivings had preyed upon him since that night of the encounter. He turned to the girl with the explanation:
"This fellow we speak of is a queer, unbalanced savage who nurses an insane hatred for me. I employed him once, but had to discharge him for incompetence, and he has threatened my life repeatedly. You may imagine the start it gave me to stroll into a cafe, at this distance from Kalvik, and find him seated at a near-by table."
"How strange!" Miss Wayland observed. "What did he do?"
"Mr. Emerson prevented him from making a scene. Only for his interference I might have been forced to—protect myself."
In spite of himself Boyd could not but wonder if Marsh were really the sort of man he had been painted; or if, as might appear sufficiently credible, he had been maligned through Cherry's prejudice and George Balt's hatred. To-night he seemed the most kindly and courteous of men.
Under Mildred's skilful direction the conversation had drifted into other channels by the time Mr. Wayland returned. Now, all at once, Boyd beheld the magnate in a new guise. Until to-night he had seen in him nothing more than a prospective father-in-law, a stubborn, dominant old fellow whose half-contemptuous toleration, unpleasant enough at times, never really amounted to active enmity. Now, however, he recognized in Wayne Wayland a commercial foe, and his knowledge of the man's character gave sufficient assurance that he might expect no mercy or consideration from him one moment after it transpired that their financial interests were in conflict.