face. He pulled Eva abruptly by the arm.

"Let's go into the house," he said, almost angrily.

Seeing the action, Locke also turned from the window to encounter Zita,
still watching. Without a word he left the laboratory.

While this little quadrangle of conflicting emotions of Locke, Eva,
Paul, and Zita was being enacted the two partners in the library were
disputing hot and heavy. As they argued, almost it seemed as if Balcom's
very face limned his thoughts--that he desired Brent out of the way, as
a weakling in whom he had discovered some traces of conscience which, to
Balcom, meant weakness.

Balcom leaned forward excitedly. "I do not intend to let you wreck this
company because your conscience, as you call it, has begun to trouble
you," he hissed.

Brent's hand clutched nervously. He was afraid of Balcom--so much so
that he fought back only weakly.

Locke was down in the hallway just in time to meet Eva and Paul as they
entered.

"Oh--do you know, I'm so glad--I think my father is the most
kind-hearted of men," Eva trilled to Locke, as she recounted what had
happened in the library with Davis.

Locke listened with restrained admiration for the girl, whatever might
have been his secret opinion of her father or of the story he already