“Oh, don’t be afraid; it wasn’t Stillman!  You’re like all women, you moon about sentimentalizing over Ned until it makes a man like me sick!  I like Ned; I always have.  But even when we went to college together it was the same way.  Everybody ... yes, even the men ... always gave him credit for a high moral tone.  Not that he ever took it....  I’ll say that for him....  Ned Stillman didn’t tell me, for the simple reason that he didn’t have to.  Nobody told me.  I go to the Palace myself under pressure, and I’ve got two eyes.  As a matter of fact, there isn’t any reason why Edington or Stillman or the waiter who drew the corks shouldn’t have mentioned it.  A glass of wine is no crime.  But the thing that makes me hot is to see any one pretending.  If you drink with Stillman, you haven’t any license to refuse a glass with me.”

There was something more than wine-heated rancor back of his harangue.  Claire guessed instinctively that he both loved and hated Stillman with a curious confusion of impulses.  It was a feeling of affection torn by the irritating superiority of its object.  One gets the same thing in families ... among children.  It was at once subtle and extremely primitive.

“My dear Mr. Flint, this isn’t quite the same thing.  I’ve work to do for one thing and, and....”

“And ... and....  Why don’t you say it?  You’re alone with me and all that sort of rubbish!  Want a chaperon, I suppose.  Mrs. Condor, for instance....  Good Lord!”

Claire dipped her spoon into the steaming bouillon-cup in front of her.  She was growing quite calm under the directness of Flint’s attack.

“It isn’t the same,” she reiterated, stubbornly.  “I’ve work to do, Mr. Flint.”

“I tell you that you haven’t!” Flint brought his fist down upon the table.

“Well, then, why did you send for me?”

“I had something to say to you....  Gad! one can’t talk in that ramping office of mine.  We’ve never even settled the matter of an increase in salary for you.  By the way, how much money do you get?”

Claire had never seen any man look so crafty and disagreeable.  He gave her the impression of a petty tyrant about to bestow largess upon an obsequious and fawning slave.

“Sixty-five dollars a month.”

“Well, I don’t exactly know....  I’ve been trying to figure out just how valuable you are to me, Miss Robson.  Or, rather, how valuable you’re likely to be.”  He thrust aside his soup and leaned heavily upon the table.  “That’s why I invited you over to-night.  I wanted to see you at a little closer range.  You live with your mother, don’t you?”

“Yes, Mr. Flint.”

“You ... you support your mother, I believe?”

“Yes, Mr. Flint.”

“Well, sixty-five dollars don’t leave much margin for hair ribbons and the like, does it, now?”

“No, Mr. Flint.”