"Who's quarreling? Can't you take a joke?"
"It's like a flick of the whip on the raw."
He had sounded the right note at last. She heard the real pain in his voice, and jumped up, careless of where the sewing went.
"Jack, wait a minute! What's the matter?"
He paused with his hand on the door-knob. "Nothing."
"What's the matter?" she repeated. "I insist on knowing!"
"Oh, well, things have gone a bit wrong. What do you care?"
She actually stamped her foot. "How dare you speak to me that way! You came in here like the Lord Hereditary Marshal of England. How was I to know?"
"Well, I didn't want to let on that I had balled things up," he said sheepishly.
"You idiot! Will you ever learn the first rudiments of sense? Sit down here!" She pulled him down beside her Pitman make-up and all. "Now tell me all about it!"
Jack looked at her a little dazed by this sudden change of front. "Why--I thought you were just having a little fun with me."
"Certainly I was. You asked for it. Whenever you take that 'my poor little woman' tone with me, you simply give me a pain. But if you are really up against it--Ah!"
Her voice caught on a deep low note of tenderness. Jack gave up all thoughts of mastery; he would have been quite content to kiss her hand.
"Well, I am up against it," he said quite humbly and naturally--and told her all about it.
She said nothing until he was through; then: "There's no occasion to be cast down that I can see. You and the old man are playing a close game, and he's turned a trick on you. But the game's not over yet."
"He's so darn sure of himself!" grumbled Jack. "He knows what I have on him, but he goes around quite openly in his old black hearse! Shows himself everywhere. Goes on making his blackguardly collections right under my nose. He seems to enjoy playing with me."
"That's a kind of vanity," said Kate. "I have read that criminals often display it. It is that very thing that will surely deliver him into your hands in the end if you bide your time. Some day he is bound to take a chance too many."
Jack began to feel comforted. "I believe I could have him arrested to-morrow if I gave his description to the police," he said.
He shook his head obstinately. "I've got to do this myself. I've sworn it.--But how does he know I'm not going to turn over my case to the police? He seems to be able to read my mind!"