“I'll come in and wait,” said he quietly.
“Yes, sir, this way, sir,” said Mallock, trying to indicate the dining-room, where he wished Orde to sit until he could come at his master's wishes in the matter.
Orde caught the aroma of tobacco and the glimmer of light to the left. Without reply he turned the knob of the door and entered the library.
There he found Newmark in evening dress, seated in a low easy chair beneath a lamp, smoking, and reading a magazine. At Orde's appearance in the doorway, he looked up calmly, his paper knife poised, keeping the place.
“Oh, it's you, Orde,” said he.
“Your man told me you were not in,” said Orde.
“He was mistaken. Won't you sit down?”
Orde entered the room and mechanically obeyed Newmark's suggestion, his manner preoccupied. For some time he stared with wrinkled brow at a point above the illumination of the lamp. Newmark, over the end of his cigar, poised a foot from his lips, watched the riverman with a cool calculation.
“Newmark,” Orde began abruptly at last, “I know all about this deal.”
“What deal?” asked Newmark, after a barely perceptible pause.