The mining man forced his hand. "Won't you introduce us, Clarendon?" he asked bluntly.
Reluctantly their host went through the formula. He was extremely uneasy. There was material for an explosion present in this room that would blow him sky-high if a match should be applied to it. Let Durand get to telling what he knew about Clarendon and the Whitfords would never speak to him again. They might even spread a true story that would bar every house and club in New York to him.
"We've heard of Mr. Durand," said Beatrice.
Her tone challenged the attention of the gang leader. The brave eyes flashed defiance straight at him. A pulse of anger was throbbing in the soft round throat.
Inscrutably he watched her. It was his habit to look hard at attractive women. "Most people have," he admitted.
"Mr. Lindsay is our friend," she said. "We've just come from seeing him."
The man to whom she was engaged had been put through so many flutters of fear during the last twelve hours that a new one more or less did not matter. But he was still not shock-proof. His fingers clutched a little tighter the arm of the chair.
"W-what did he tell you?"
Beatrice looked into his eyes and read in them once more stark fear. Again she had a feeling that there was something about the whole affair she had not yet fathomed—some secret that Clay and Clarendon and perhaps this captain of thugs knew.
She tried to read what he was hiding, groped in her mind for the key to his terror. What could it be that he was afraid Clay had told her? What was it they all knew except Lindsay's friends? And why, since Clarendon was trembling lest it be discovered, should the Arizonan too join the conspiracy of silence? At any rate she would not uncover her hand.