Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/105

 declared with heat. Then his mounting tinge of anger went suddenly out of his face.

"Pshaw! what're we squabbling about, anyway?" he cried. "We're both making easy money out of this, and that's an end of it. "We'll have time to talk later on. And I guess you're busy to-night."

There was a veiled tone of mockery in his voice that seemed to leave McKinnon a little troubled. He followed his visitor to the state room door in silence.

"We'll pull together," assuaged Duffy largely, suavely, as he stepped out on the deck. "We've got to, eh?" He laughed a little as he said "Good-night."

"Good-night," answered the operator.

The stateroom door had scarcely closed before the woman had pushed aside the model-case and was out of her hiding-place. Her face had lost its last vestige of colour.

"Oh!" she cried pantingly, and nothing more.

"Hush!" said the alarmed operator, listening at the closed door.

She stood there, breathing hard, with her hand on her breast. Her attitude reminded him of the night before, when she had so suddenly and disturbingly stepped back into his cabin.

"What is it?"

"That man!" the woman exclaimed. She