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Page 33
Somehow the action appealed to Constance. It was genuine,
disinterested. Secretly, it was flattering. Still, she said nothing
about Bella, nor about Mrs. Noble. Halsey seemed to appreciate the
fact. His face showed plainly as if he had said it that here, at
least, was one woman who was not always talking about others.
There had been a rapid-fire suddenness about his confidences which
had fascinated her.
"Are you in business?" she ventured.
"Oh, yes," he laughed grimly. "I'm in business--treasurer of the
Exporting & Manufacturing Company."
"But," she pursued, looking him frankly in the face, "I should think
you'd be afraid to--er--become involved--"
"I know I am being watched," he broke in impatiently. "You see, I'm
bonded, and the bonding companies keep a pretty sharp lookout on
your habits. Oh, the crash will come some day. Until it does--let us
make the most of it--while it lasts."
He said the words bitterly. Constance was confirmed in her original
suspicion of him now. Halsey was getting deeper and deeper into the
moral quagmire. She had seen his interest in Mrs. Noble. Had Bella
LeMar hoped that she, too, would play will-o '-the-wisp in leading
him on?
Over the still half-eaten supper she watched Halsey keenly. A
thousand questions about himself, about Mrs. Noble, rushed through
her mind. Should she be perfectly frank?
"Are you--are you using the company's money!" she asked at length
pointedly.
He had not expected the question, and his evident intention was to
deny it. But he met her eye. He tried to escape it, but could not.
What was there about this little woman that had compelled his
attention and interest from the moment he had been introduced?
Quickly he tried to reason it out in his heart. It was not that she
was physically attractive to him. Mrs. Noble was that It was not
that fascination which Bella aroused, the adventuress, the siren,
the gorgon. In Constance there was something different. She was a
woman of the world, a man's woman. Then, too, she was so brutally
frank in inviting his confidences.
Over and over he turned the answer he had intended to make. He
caught her eye again and knew that it was of no use.
"Yes," he muttered, as a cloud spread over his face at not being
able, as usual, to let the gay life put the truth out of his mind.
"Yes, I have been using--their funds."
As if a switch had been turned, the light broke on Constance. She
saw herself face to face with one of the dark shadows in the great
city of high lights.
"How?" she asked simply, leaning forward over the table.
There was no resisting her. Quickly he told her all.
"At first with what little money of my own I had I played. Then I
began to sign I O U's and notes. Now I have been taking blank stock
certificates, some of those held as treasury stock in the company's
safe. They have never been issued, so that by writing in the
signatures of myself and the other officers necessary, I have been
able to use it to pay off my losses in gambling."
As he unfolded to her the plan which he had adopted, Constance
listened in amazement.
"And you know that you are watched," she repeated, changing the
subject, and sensing rather than seeing that Drummond was watching
them then.
"Yes," he continued freely. "The International Surety, in which I'm
bonded, has a sort of secret service of its own, I understand. It is
the eye that is never closed, but is screened from the man under
bond. When you go into the Broadway night life too often, for
instance," he pursued, waving his hand about at the gay tables, "run
around in fast motors with faster company--well, they know it. Who
is watching, I do not know. But with me it will be as it has been
when others came to the end. Some day they will come to me, and they
are going to say, 'We don't like your conduct. Where do you get this
money?' They will know, then, too. But before that time comes I want
to win, to be in a position to tell them to go--"
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