“What, indeed!  By the way, what is Major Bussey’s price?”

“Oh, Mr. Banneker!” Was it sheer delight in deviltry, or amusement at his direct and unstrategic method that sparkled in her face.  “You surely don’t credit the silly stories of—­well, blackmail, about us!”

“It might be money,” he reflected.  “But, on the whole, I think it’s something else.  Something he wants from The Patriot, perhaps.  Immunity?  Would that be it?  Not that I mean, necessarily, to deal.”

“What is your proposition?” she asked confidentially.

“How can I advance one when I don’t know what your principal wants?”

“The paragraph was written in good faith,” she asserted.

“And could be withdrawn in equal good faith?”

Her laugh was silvery clear.  “Very possibly.  Under proper representations.”

“Then don’t you think I’d better deal direct with the Major?”

She studied his face.  “Yes,” she began, and instantly refuted herself.  “No.  I don’t trust you.  There’s trouble under that smooth smile of yours.”

“But you’re not afraid of me, surely,” said Banneker.  He had found out one important point; her manner when she said “Yes” indicated that the proprietor was in the building.  Now he continued:  “Are you?”

“I don’t know.  I think I am.”  There was a little catch in her breath.  “I think you’d be dangerous to any woman.”

Banneker, his eyes fixed on hers, played for time and a further lead with a banality.  “You’re pleased to flatter me.”

“Aren’t you pleased to be flattered?” she returned provocatively.

He put his hand on her wrist.  She swayed to him with a slow, facile yielding.  He caught her other wrist, and the grip of his two hands seemed to bite into the bone.

“So you’re that kind, too, are you!” he sneered, holding her eyes as cruelly as he had clutched her wrists.  “Keep quiet!  Now, you’re to do as I tell you.”

(Ely Ives, in describing the watchwoman at the portals of scandal, had told him that she was susceptible to a properly timed bluff.  “A woman she had slandered once stabbed her; since then you can get her nerve by a quick attack.  Treat her rough.”)

She stared at him, fearfully, half-hypnotized.

“Is that the door leading to Bussey’s office?  Don’t speak!  Nod.”

Dumb and stricken, she obeyed.

“I’m going there.  Don’t you dare make a movement or a noise.  If you do—­I’ll come back.”

Shifting his grasp, he caught her up and with easy power tossed her upon a broad divan.  From its springy surface she shot up, as it seemed to him, halfway to the ceiling, rigid and staring, a ludicrous simulacrum of a glassy-eyed doll.  He heard the protesting “ping!” and “berr-rr-rr” of a broken spring as she fell back.  The traverse of a narrow hallway and a turn through a half-open door took him into the presence of bearded benevolence making notes at a desk.