Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/150

138 Then he sighed and wiped his eyes. "Poor child!" he cooed with a convulsive movement of the shoulders, plainly intended as an expression of inarticulate grief. I would have pinched him, I know, but his leg was beyond my reach. And the only people I felt sorry for was that group of anxious-eyed sheep at the far end of the room. They were, I knew, about to get the jolt of their life. They were going to see their fondest dreams of wealth suddenly go up in smoke. And all this intricate byplay, I remembered, was merely to impress on them that the smoke was genuine. Not one of them, probably, had done any more than I had to merit that wealth. But the shadow of seven million dollars is a far-reaching one. It could, I reminded myself, bring ease and affluence to hundreds. It should have poured like a great river of gold, I supposed, straight out to those hungry-eyed ones. But that mighty river was being turned from its course, was being diverted, was being sent sweeping down the other side of a great divide. And Little Me in my crêpe-de-chine nightie was the instrument that was to turn aside that colossal yellow current, by a mere scratch of the pen. It was no wonder I began to feel rather important.

I could hear old Theobald Scripps clear his throat