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But you wouldn't have thought this on the morning when Mary entered it in response to Burdon's suggestion. A fire was glowing on the andirons. New rugs gave colour and life to the floor. The mantel had been swept clear of annual reports and technical books, and graced with a friendly clock and a still more friendly pair of vases filled with flowers.
"Wait; I have some adhesive plaster." Even then she didn't guess. "How did you do it?" she asked. "Oh, I don't know " Mary's glance suddenly deepened into tenderness, and when Archey left a few minutes later, he walked as one who trod the clouds, his head among the stars. An hour passed, and Mary looked in Uncle Stanley's office. Burdon's desk was closed as though for the day.
"Well," he said, hesitating, "I went out after dinner last night to see if they were reading the bill-boards. I thought I'd walk down Jay Street that's where the strikers have their headquarters. I was walking along when all at once I thought I saw Burdon's old car turning a corner ahead of me. "It stopped in front of Repetti's pool-room. Two men came out and got in.
A moment before Burdon's name was mentioned she was sitting relaxed and rather dispirited, as you sometimes see a yacht becalmed, riding the water without life or interest. But as soon as it appeared that Burdon was about to enter, a breeze suddenly seemed to fill Helen's sails. Her beauty, passive before, became active. Her bunting fluttered. Her flags began to fly.
"We finished our report last night," said the elder, handing her a copy. "As you will see, we have discovered a very serious situation in the treasurer's department." It struck Mary later that she showed no surprise. Indeed, more than once in the last few days, when noticing Burdon's nervous recklessness, she had found herself connecting it with the auditors' work upon the books.
Nothing more was said, but a few mornings later, as Helen sat at breakfast reading her mail, Mary was sure she recognized Burdon's dashing handwriting. A vague sense of uneasiness passed over her, but this was soon forgotten when she went to the den to look at her own mail. On the top of the pile was a letter addressed to her father. "Rio de Janeiro," breathed Mary, reading the post-mark.
Though the hint of charlatanry in the Frenchman's methods had not escaped Arthur Burdon's shrewd eyes, the audacious sureness of his hand had excited his enthusiasm. During luncheon he talked of nothing else, and Dr Porhoët, drawing upon his memory, recounted the more extraordinary operations that he had witnessed in Egypt.
"A little while later I was speaking to one of our men and he said some rough actors were drifting in town and he didn't like the way they were talking. I asked him where these men were making their headquarters and he said, 'Repetti's Pool Room." Mary thought that over. "Mind you, I wouldn't swear it was Burdon's old car," said Archey, more troubled than before.
"Miss Mary's around the factory somewhere," said a stenographer. Another spoke up, a dark girl with a touch of passion in her smile. "I think Mr. Burdon is looking for her, too." Archey missed neither the smile nor the tone and liked neither of them. "He'll get in trouble yet," he thought, "going out with those girls," and his frown grew as he thought of Burdon's daily contact with Mary.
The poacher's eyes did indeed follow him till he disappeared, but it would have taken a wise man to read them. After a meditative minute or so he coiled up his wire, pocketed it, and made off across the face of the rock by a giddy track which withdrew him at once from Jim Burdon's sight.
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