“Mr. Seadon!” she protested, aghast.
“It does,” said Clement, sure of himself. “Miss Heloise, if those claims are only a very short distance from the railway, then they are claims that could not have been overlooked. Don’t you see ... railwaymen, engineers, prospectors, scores of people must have had a chance of poking round. If there had been anything good there, it would have been found long ago. And as it hasn’t happened—well——”
“You think there is no chance at all,” said the girl in dismay.
“I think,” said Clement impressively—this, he felt, was his great opportunity. He must drive home truth into the soul of this girl, though it was painful—“I think that you—that your friend should go into this matter with the most scrupulous attention, that you—that your friend should commit himself” (in his stress he overlooked the gender he had employed) “in no way. All the dealings should be made through unbiased experts—unbiased, Miss Heloise; some big mining consultants with a reputation for straight-dealing.... Nobody locally. I urge you to impress upon your friend the need of the greatest care.”
The girl gave a gasp. It was a gasp of misery. Clement felt sore and sorry for her—but he must say what he had to say. Then she said with pain, “Then you think—you think there might be something—underhand about such a venture.”
“Yes,” said Clement slowly, “I think there is a great possibility of there being something underhand in it—from what you tell me.”
“O-oh,” sighed the girl, and she fell back in her chair. Clement knew why she was overcome. His confirmation of the suspicions that the little lawyer Hartley Hard had fired at her, had forced her soul to face an ugly conviction.
Clement, inexpressibly sorry for her, followed her action with his eyes. He would like to help her, he felt in his heart an almost agonized desire to do something to soothe her wounded soul. She was so gentle, so young to have suffered a shock. He half turned in his eagerness to help her.
Something—a shadow where there should have been the gray-blue light of the open sea—caused him to lift his eyes.