Page:Watts Mumford--Whitewash.djvu/262

 height, scorn and agony at work on his handsome face.

"Pretty game, isn't it, trying to bribe servants? And, pray, what should a waiter of Gagano's know of Miss Ford? I should count his identification mere perjury!"

"Not a bit of it, not a bit of it! As it happens, this one has worked at Sherry's and Delmonico's. Man's been sick—just out of hospital. Took Gagano's job pro tem. But it seems it's professional etiquette with them to keep mum—doctors, priests, and waiters, same lodge."

Morton sat down miserably. His world was spinning about him. If only Philippa had not looked him in the face with those angelic eyes, and denied. If only she had not held to her accusation of Victoria, and made herself out such a supremely superior being. If only she had left one loophole for her own shortcomings. The escapade he would have forgiven—what girl does not need forgiveness for some daredevil, foolish action sometime in her life? Who was he to blame her?

His eyes burned and his mouth twitched as his 252