Whether she was really attracted by Ormuz Khan or
whether she suffered his attentions merely because she knew them
to be distasteful to others, he could not yet decide.
Anger threatened him--as it had threatened him when he had
realized that Nicol Brinn meant to remain silent. He combated it,
for it had no place in the judicial mind of the investigator. But
he recognized its presence with dismay. Where Phil Abingdon was
concerned he could not trust himself. In her glance, too, and in
the manner of her answers to questions concerning the Oriental,
there was a provoking femininity--a deliberate and baffling
intrusion of the eternal Eve.
He stared questioningly across at Doctor McMurdoch and perceived
a sudden look of anxiety in the physician's face. Quick as the
thought which the look inspired, he turned to Phil Abingdon.
She was sitting quite motionless in the big armchair, and her
face had grown very pale. Even as he sprang forward he saw her
head droop.
"She has fainted," said Doctor McMurdoch. "I'm not surprised."
"Nor I," replied Harley. "She should not have come."
He opened the door communicating with his private apartments and
ran out. But, quick as he was, Phil Abingdon had recovered before
he returned with the water for which he had gone. Her reassuring
smile was somewhat wan. "How perfectly silly of me!" she said. "I
shall begin to despise myself."
Presently he went down to the street with his visitors.
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