"Oh!" said he, rather long drawn-out; and she saw his smile fade. "Yes?"
"I meant to say to you," she went on, with the same "great lady" graciousness, "that I shall of course speak to my father about the girl you say was unjustly dismissed. It's a matter, naturally, with which you have nothing to do. But if an injustice has been done by one of his subordinates, my father would naturally wish to know of it, so that he may set it right."
The little speech came off smoothly enough, having been prepared (on the chance) last night. For the moment its effect seemed most gratifying. The young man turned away from her, plainly discomfited. There was a small callosity on the pilaster adjacent to his hand, and he scratched at it intently with a long forefinger. Standing so, he murmured, in the way he had of seeming to be talking to himself:
She disliked the reply, which seemed cowardly somehow, and said with dignity: "It's purely a business matter, and of course I make no promises about it at all. If there _has_ been any injustice, it was of course done without my father's knowledge. I have no _idea_ what he will do about it, but whatever he decides will of course be right."
The man turned back to her, hardly as if he had heard.
"The trouble is," he said, in an odd voice, harder than she had supposed him to possess, "I didn't trust you. I--"
"Really that's of no consequence. I'm not concerned in it at--"
"I was sure all the time you would--be willing to do it," he went on, in the same troubled way. "I was _sure_. And yet last night I went off and spoke to somebody else about it--a man who has influence with MacQueen--John Farley--a--a sort of saloonkeeper. Corinne is back at work this morning."
The girl struggled against an absurd sense of defeat. She wished now--oh, _how_ she wished!--that she had gone away immediately after giving him mamma's and papa's cards....
"Oh!" she said, quite flatly.... "Well--in that case--there is no more to be said."
But there he seemed to differ with her. "I'd give a good deal," he said slowly, "if I'd only waited.... Could you let me say how sorry I am--"
"Please don't apologize to me! I've told you before that I--I _detest_ apologies...."
"I was not apologizing to you exactly," said V. Vivian, with a kind of little falter.