Zita whispered to him a moment and Balcom’s hard face grew harder.

“Go up-stairs—­watch him,” he ordered, passing down the hall.

Balcom entered the library just as Davis was about to leave, hugging close to him his brain child.  Davis clutched it a bit closer at sight of the other partner.

A glance would have been sufficient to show that Brent was secretly afraid of his partner, Balcom, and that Balcom dominated him.

“Go to the gate with him, my dear,” whispered Brent to his daughter, who was clinging to his arm, convinced of the goodness of her father, ignorant of the very basis on which the Brent and Balcom fortune rested.

Balcom’s mouth tightened as he came closer to Brent, menacing, the moment they were alone.

“How long has this double crossing been going on?” sneered Balcom, jerking his head toward the door through which Eva had just gone with the inventor, and shoving his face close to Brent’s.

“It’s not double crossing, Balcom,” Brent attempted to conciliate, “but—­”

“No ‘buts,’” interrupted Balcom, with deadly coldness.  “Keep on, and you’ll have the government down on us for violating the anti-trust law.  What’s the matter?  Have you lost your nerve?”

As Balcom almost hissed the question, up in the laboratory Locke was now writing furiously in his note-book, when he was interrupted by a knock at the door.  He whipped the dictagraph receiver off his head and jumped to his feet, hiding all traces of the dictagraph in the desk drawer.  Then he moved over to the door, unlocked it, and flung it open.

“Oh, I hope I haven’t interrupted you in any important experiment,” apologized Zita, innocently enough.

“Nothing important,” camouflaged Locke.

Though Locke did not seem to notice it, another would have seen that Zita cared a great deal for him.

“May I come in?” she asked, wheedling.

“Certainly.  I am charmed, I assure you.”

While Zita was gushingly effusive, Locke was correct and formally polite as he bowed his acquiescence.  Zita felt it.

For a moment she stood looking at a half-finished experiment on the laboratory table, then finally she turned to Locke with a calculated impulsiveness.

“Why do you treat me so coldly,” she asked, “when you know I admire your wonderful work?”

“Really, Miss Dane,” he apologized, “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

Yet there was an air of constraint in his very tone.

“Do you know,” she flashed, “I can’t help feeling that you are so brilliant—­you must be something more than you seem.”

Locke suppressed a quick look of surprise.  Was she trying to worm some secret from him?  He masked his face cleverly.

“Indeed, you must be imagining things,” he replied, quietly, turning and strolling toward the window of his laboratory.

The moment his back was turned Zita picked up the photograph of Eva on the desk.  For a moment she stood glaring at it jealously.