"I forbid you to answer this fellow--" Sprudell's voice shook and his pink face had again taken on the curious chalkiness of color which it became under stress of feeling. Forgetting prudence, his deferential pose, forgetting everything that he should have remembered in his rage at Bruce's hardihood, and the fear of exposure, he shook his finger threateningly before Helen's face.
On the instant her chin went haughtily in the air and there was a dangerous sparkle in her eyes as she replied: "You are presumptuous, Mr. Sprudell. Your manner is offensive--very."
He ignored her resentment and laid his hand none too gently upon her arm, as though he would have turned her forcibly toward the door. The action, the familiarity it implied, incensed her.
"Take your hand away," Helen said quietly but tensely.
"I tell you not to talk to him!" But he obeyed.
"I intend to hear what Mr. Burt has to say."
"You mean that?"
"I do."
"Then you'll listen alone," he threatened. "You can get home the best you can."
"Suit yourself about that," Helen replied coolly. "There are taxicabs at the door and the cars run every six minutes."
Bruce contributed cordially: "Sprudell, you just dust along whenever you get ready."
"You'll repent this--both of you!" His voice shook with chagrin and fury--"I'll see to that if it takes the rest of my life and my last dollar."
Bruce warned in mock solicitude: "Don't excite yourself, it's bad for your heart; I can tell that from your color."
Sprudell's answer was a malignant look from one to the other.
"On the square," said Bruce ruefully when the last turn of the revolving door had shut Sprudell into the street, "I hadn't an idea of stirring up anything like this when I spoke to you."
"It doesn't matter," Helen answered coldly. "It will disabuse his mind of the notion that he has any claim on me."
"It did look as though he wanted to give that impression."
Bruce was absurdly pleased to find himself alone with her, but Helen's eyes did not soften and her voice was distant as she said, moving toward the nearest parlor: "If you have anything to say to me, please be brief. I must be going."
"I want to know what Sprudell has told you that you should look at me almost as if you hated me?"
"How else would I look at the man who murdered my brother in cold-blood."
He stared at her blankly in an astonishment too genuine to be feigned.
"I murdered your brother in cold-blood! You are Slim's sister, then?"
"I'm Frederic Naudain's sister, if that's what you mean--his half-sister."