"I do, indeed."
"There isn't any language can express how I thank you. But I know if only you was acquainted with her—" He had turned, in rising, to get his hat, and he now stopped short and exclaimed with bewildered reproach, "Oh, well, now, Mr. Herrick! Why wouldn't you tell me?"
"Tell you?" Herrick's eyes followed his. They led to the likeness of his Evadne, of his dear Heroine. "Tell you what?"
"Why, that you was acquainted with—" said Mr. Deutch, extending his hat, as if in a magnificence of introduction, "Christina Hope."
Herrick could not speak. And Deutch added, "You was acquainted with her, all along! It's a real old picture—'bout five years ago. You knew her then? You knew her—And you—saw—" His voice died away. His glance turned from Herrick's and traveled unwillingly to where, upon the blinds drawn down again, across the street, it seemed to both men the shadow must start forth. And, as he slowly withdrew his gaze, Herrick saw, looking out at him from those soft, spaniel eyes, the eyes of fear.
Deutch bowed bruskly and withdrew. Herrick was alone, as he had been these many months, with the young challenge of his Heroine; the familiar face, long learned by heart, asking its innocent questions about life, shone softly out on him, in pride. And, on that August morning, he felt his blood go cold.
CHAPTER VII
HERRICK HAS A BUSIEST DAY
There was a time coming when Herrick was to salute as prophetic what he now noted with a grim amusement; that from the moment the shadow sprang upon the blind the current of his life was changed. Peopled, busy, adventurous, it had passed, as one might say, into active circulation. He was suddenly in the center of the stage.