Barnes stared. "What do you mean?" he demanded sharply.
"I mean just what I said. What do you know about this business?"
"How should I know ANYTHING about it?"
"Well, we don't know who you are, nor what you're doing up here, nor what your real profession is. That's why I ask the question."
"I see," said Barnes, after a moment. He grasped the situation and he admitted to himself that Jones had cause for his suspicions. "It has occurred to you that I may be a detective or a secret service man, isn't that the case? Well, I am neither. Moreover, this man and his companion evidently had their doubts about me, if I am to judge by your remark and your actions on the porch earlier in the evening."
"I only said that they were curious about you. The man named Roon asked me a good many questions about you while you were in at supper. Who knows but what he was justified in thinkin' you didn't mean any good to him and his friend?"
"Did you know any more about these two men, Mr. Jones, than you know about me?"
"I don't know anything about 'em. They came here like any one else, paid their bills regular, 'tended to their own business, and that's all."
"What was their business?"
"Mr. Roon was lookin' for a place to bring his daughter who has consumption. He didn't want to take her to a reg'lar consumptive community, he said, an' so he was lookin' for a quiet place where she wouldn't be associatin' with lungers all the time. Some big doctor in New York told him to come up here an' look around. That was his business, Mr. Barnes, an' I guess you'd call it respectable, wouldn't you?"
"Perfectly. But why should he be troubled by my presence here if--" Miss Thackeray put an end to the discussion in a most effectual manner.
"Oh, for the Lord's sake, cut it out! Wait till he's dead, can't you?" she whispered fiercely. "You've got all the time in the world to talk, and he hasn't more than ten minutes left to breathe unless that rube doctor gets here pretty soon. If you've GOT to settle the question right away, at least have the decency to go out of this room."
Barnes flushed to the roots of his hair. Jones was aghast, dumb with surprise and anger.
"You are right, Miss Thackeray," said the former, deeply mortified. "This is not the time nor the place to----"
"He can't understand a word we say," said Putnam Jones loudly. "You better get out of here yourself, young woman. This is a job for men, not--"