“I think you will get along better with him alone,” said he. “He is a man who very easily gets embarrassed, and has a way of acting as if he were afraid of me. I will just step outside while you talk to him.”
But Mr. Sylvester with a sudden dark flush on his brow, hastily stopped him. “I beg you will not,” said he, with a quick realization of what Hopgood might be led to say in the forthcoming interview, if he were not restrained by the presence of the director. “Hopgood is not so afraid of you that he will not answer every question that is put to him with straightforward frankness.” And he pushed up a chair, with a smile that Mr. Stuyvesant evidently found himself unable to resist. The screen trembled slightly, but none of them noticed it; Mr. Sylvester at once rang for Hopgood.
He came in panting with his hurried descent from the fifth story, his face flushed and his eyes rolling, but without any of the secret perturbation Bertram had observed in them on a former occasion. “He cannot help us,” was the thought that darkened the young man’s brow as his eyes left the janitor, and faltering towards his uncle, fell upon the table before him.
Everything was reflected in the mirror.
“Well, Hopgood, I have a few questions to put to you this morning,” said Mr. Sylvester in a restrained, but not unkindly tone.
The worthy man bowed, bestowed a salutatory roll of his eyes on Mr. Stuyvesant, and stood deferentially waiting.
“No, he cannot help us,” was again Bertram’s thought, and again his eyes faltered to his uncle’s face, and again fell anxiously before him.
“It has not been my habit to trouble you with inquiries about your management of matters under your charge,” continued Mr. Sylvester,