Page:The council of seven.djvu/45

 *pose a word. By the time she was able to do so, mischief had been wrought.

"Don't you wonder why I'm here," she said, "at this hour?"

"To own the Planet," he laughed, "is to wonder at nothing."

"I want your help in a matter of great importance."

"Aha!" There came at once an entire change of tone and manner that was charming. "Sit down again in that chair, and tell me just precisely what I can do." Of a sudden he had put on the cloak of an indulgent father. When he spoke like that to any one, there was no resisting him.

Helen automatically obeyed. "It's about Mr. Endor's speech." She plunged in medias res. With those eyes, their light ever changing, fixed upon her, she lost the power to order her words artistically. "I have his assurance that he has been misreported."

"Ah!" The slight exclamation was curiously, almost affectionately, gentle.

"He's so upset!" A feminine urgency of tone was the oddest contrast. "Almost every word he used has in some strange way been given another meaning. For instance, the final phrase as given in the Evening Press is 'I believe in the Sword.'"

"Yes, I noticed that." The tone had all the kindliness of an old-fashioned pedagogue patting on the head a favorite pupil. "A little bold perhaps just now, but striking really quite striking!"