CHAPTER XVI

The young lawyer was to call at eight o'clock. Mrs. Balfame put on her best black blouse in his honour; it was cut low about the throat and softened with a rolling collar of hemstitched white lawn. This was as far in the art of sex allurement as she was prepared to go; the bare idea of a negligée of white lace and silk, warmed by rose-colored shades, would have filled her with cold disgust. She was not a religious woman, but she had her standards.

At a quarter of eight she made a careful inspection of the lower rooms; sleuths, professional and amateur, would not hesitate to sneak into her house and listen at keyholes. She inferred that the house was under surveillance, for she had looked from her window several times and seen the same man sauntering up and down that end of the avenue. No doubt some one watched the back doors also.

Convinced that her home was still sacrosanct, she placed two chairs at a point in the parlour farthest from the doors leading into the hall, and into a room beyond which Mr. Balfame had used as an office. The doors, of course, would be open throughout the interview. No one should be able to say that she had shut herself up with a young man; on the other hand, it was the duty of the deceased husband's lawyer to call on the widow. Even if those young devils discovered that she had telephoned for him, what more regular than[Pg 146] that she should wish to consult her lawyer after such insinuations?

[Pg 146]

Rush arrived as the town clock struck eight. Frieda, who answered the door in her own good time, surveyed him suspiciously through a narrow aperture to which she applied one eye.

"What you want?" she growled. "Mrs. Balfame she have seen all the reporters already yet."

"Let the gentleman in," called Mrs. Balfame from the parlour. "This is a friend of my late husband."

Rush was permitted to enter. He was a full minute disposing of his hat and overcoat in the hall, while Frieda dragged her heelless slippers back to the kitchen and slammed the door. His own step was not brisk as he left the hall for the parlour, and his face, always colourless, looked thin and haggard. Mrs. Balfame, as she rose and gave him her hand, asked solicitously:

"Are you under the weather? How seedy you look. I wondered why you had not called—"

"A touch of the 

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