Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/511

 Because if you are" The bed rustled as with a movement of preparation.

"My goodness! I'm just sitting here, Mamma! I don't want to lie down. I'm not doing any harm just sitting here, am I? Wouldn't you like to have your door closed, Hon?"

"I would not!" she replied with a decisiveness beyond argument.

He sat motionless, doing nothing whatever for several minutes; and the silence was as soothing as he hoped it would be. Presently her breathing became audible—though this was something she never believed of herself—and with slow carefulness he took from an inner pocket of his coat a small, black-bound pad of bank cheques. He cautiously removed one, slid the book back into his pocket, and, bending over the desk, wrote briefly. After that, discovering a single envelope in a pigeon-hole before him, he enclosed the written slip within it, and rose to his feet.

Across the room from him was a door opening upon a corridor. Tinker looked at it fixedly; then, moving with an elaborate delicacy, he made his way craftily over the floor in that direction.

. . . The tall lady sitting alone in the tea-room