Together they went in. Bernal stopped to talk with Aunt Bell, who was passing through the hall as they entered; while Nancy, with the manner of one not to be deflected from some set purpose, made straight for Allan's study.
In answer to her ominously crisp little knock, she heard his "Come!" and opened the door.
He sat facing her at his desk, swinging idly from side to side in the revolving chair, through the small space the desk permitted. Upon the blotter before him she saw that he had been drawing interminable squares, oblongs, triangles and circles, joining them to one another in aimless, wandering sequence--his sign of a perturbed mind.
He glanced up with a look of waiting defiance which she knew but masked all his familiar artillery.
Instantly she determined to give him no opportunity to use this. She would end matters with a rush. He was awaiting her attack. She would make none.
"I think there is nothing to say," she began quickly. "I could utter certain words, but they would mean one thing to me and other things to you--there is no real communication possible between us. Only remember that this--to-day--matters little--I had already resolved that sooner or later I must go. This only makes it necessary to go at once."
She turned to the door which she had held ajar. At her words he sat forward in his chair, the yellow stars blazing in his eyes. But the opening was not the one he had counted upon, and before he could alter his speech to fit it, or could do more than raise a hand to detain her, she had gone.
He sat back in his chair, calculating how to meet this mood. Then the door resounded under a double knock and Bernal came in.
"Well, old boy, I'll be off to-night. The lawyer is done with me here and now I'll go to Edom and finish what's to be done there. Then in a few days I'll be out of this machine and back to the ranche. You know I've decided that my message to the world would best take the substantial form of beef--a message which no one will esteem unpractical."
He paused, noting the other's general droop of gloom.
"But what's the trouble, old chap? You look done up!"
"Bernal--it's all because I am too good-hearted, too unsuspecting. Being slow to think evil of others, I foolishly assume that others will be equally charitable. And you don't know what women are--you don't know how the sentimental ones impose upon a man in my office. I give you my word of honour as a man--my word of _honour_, mind you!--there never has been a thing between us but the purest, the most elevated--the loftiest, most ideal--"