“We’ve never gone in for any criminal business here,” he said, after long reflection, while he continued to scribble aimlessly, “but, of course, we’re in touch with the people who take it up.”

“I thought you might be.”

“But it’s only fair to tell you that if your motive is to save time for our friend in question—­”

“That is my motive—­the only one.”

“Then you could get in touch with them, too.”

“But I don’t want to.”

“Still I think you should consider it.  The best legal advice in the world can be—­bought—­for money.”

“I know that.”

Lifting his eyes in a sharp look, he saw her head lilted back with her own special air of deliberate temerity.

“Oh, very well, then,” he said, quietly, resuming his scribbling again.  After this warning he felt justified in taking her at her word.

With that as a beginning she knew she had gained her first great point.  In answer to his questions she told the story over again, displaying, as he remembered afterward—­but long afterward—­a surprising familiarity with its details.  She made suggestions which he noted as marked by some acumen, and laid stress on the value of the aid they might expect privately from Philip Wayne.  The beauty and eagerness in her face fired the almost atrophied enthusiasm in his own heart, while he could not but see that this entirely altruistic interest had brought them in half an hour nearer together than they had ever been before.  It was what they had never had till now—­a bond in common.  In spite of the persistency of his efforts and his assertions, he had never hitherto got nearer her than a statue on a pedestal gets to its neighbor in a similar situation but now at last they were down on the same earth together.  This was more than reason enough for his taking up the cause of Norrie Ford, consecrating to it all his resources, mental and material, and winning it.

In the course of an hour or two their understanding was complete, but he did not refer again to the conditions of their tacit compact.  It was she who felt that sufficient had not been said—­that the sincerity with which she subscribed to it had not been duly emphasized.  She was at the door on the point of going away when she braced herself to look at him and say: 

“You can’t realize what all this means to me.  If we succeed—­that is, if you succeed—­I hardly dare to tell you of the extent to which I shall be grateful.”

He felt already some of the hero’s magnanimity as to claiming his reward.

“You needn’t think about that,” he smiled.  “I sha’n’t.  If by making Evie happy I can serve you, I shall not ask for gratitude.”

She looked down at her muff and smoothed its fur, then glanced up swiftly.  “No; but I shall want to give it.”

With that she was gone—­lighter of heart than a few hours ago it had seemed to her possible ever to be again.  Her joy was the joy of the captain who feels that he has saved his ship, though his own wound is fatal.