then the girl said quietly: "I'll go in myself."




CHAPTER VI


Harrow had not overstated the facts when he said that it had been his
privilege to serve in families "where niceties were highly regarded." He
was the accomplished servant, seeing and hearing only such things as his
betters intended for his eyes and ears. If he had human emotions he
ordinarily revealed them only when his livery was doffed. Yet even the
impeccably correct serving man has his moments of weakness, and, as
Hamilton Burton left the room, he muttered low, but quite audibly, "My
God!" Then, feeling Carl Bristoll's chilling glance upon him, he sought
to cover his indiscretion in an apologetic cough.

But the secretary himself felt the disturbing uneasiness that had
prompted that exclamation. Hamilton Burton had been defied, and when
that occurred peace fled and punishment fell.

Evidently the girl upstairs, the girl just returned from years of study
and travel in Europe, had something of that same spirit which made her
brother's will a thing of adamant, but she had not done well to begin
her new life by measuring lances with the autocratic Hamilton. Probably
at the moment she was being reprimanded, perhaps rebuked into tears
which, since she was young and beautiful, became a disquieting thought.
Carl Bristoll felt the discomfort of the outsider in the shadow of a
family scene.