"You won't tell me anything!
So--I am now going to the police. I don't know what they'll do. I don't
know what they can do. But--I can tell them what I think and feel about
this, at any rate. For as sure as I am that I see you, there's something
wrong! And I'll know what it is."
Pratt recognized that she had passed beyond the stage of mere anger to
one of calm determination. And as she marched towards the door he called
her back--as the result of a second's swift thought on his part.
"Miss Mallathorpe," he said. "Oblige me by sitting down again. I'm not
in the least afraid of your going to the police. But my experience is
that if one goes to them on errands of this sort, it sets all sorts of
things going--scandal, and suspicion, and I don't know what! You don't
want any scandal. Sit down, if you please, and let us think for a
moment. And I'll see if I can tell you--what you want to know."
Nesta already had a hand on the door. But after looking at him for a
second or two, she turned back, and sat down in her old position. And
Pratt, still seated at his desk, plunged his hands in his trousers
pockets, tilted back his chair, and for five minutes stared with knitted
brows at his blotting pad. A queer silence fell on the room. The windows
were double-sashed; no sound came up from the busy street below. But on
the mantelpiece a cheap Geneva clock ticked and ticked, and Nesta felt
at last that if it went on much longer, without the accompaniment of a
human voice, she should suddenly snatch it up, and hurl it--anywhere.
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