“Do your people know?”
“I have no people. It hasn’t seemed worth while to mention it to my friends. So you will regard this as a professional confidence?”
“Oh, look here!” burst out Colton. “I can’t sit around and watch this go on. I’ve got more money than I can rightly use. You don’t know me much, and you don’t like me much, but try to put that aside. Let me pay your——” he glanced at Haynes and swiftly amended—“let me lend you enough to take you abroad for a year. I’ll write to some people in Vienna and Berlin. They’re away ahead of us in cancerous affections. I’d go with you, only——”
He stopped short, as he realised that the controverting reason was Miss Dorothy Ravenden’s presence on the American side of the ocean.
The reporter walked over and put his hand on Colton’s shoulder. His harsh voice softened to something of the tone that he used toward Helga, as he said: “My dear Colton, all the money in the world won’t do it. If it would, well,” with a sudden, rare smile, “I’m not sure I wouldn’t take yours, provided I needed it.”
“Try it,” urged the other. “You don’t know how much those foreign experts may help you.”
Haynes shook his head. “O, terque quaterque beati, queis ante ora patrum contigit oppetere,” he quoted. “That’s one of my few remnants of Virgil. It means a great deal to me. I shall not die in exile. Well, Colton, send for your brother.”
“And what will you do?”
“Stay here and work. There’s something in life besides pain when inexplicable strokes from the void kill men and sheep. I’m going over to do some more investigating.”
“And I to wire my brother,” said Colton.