Kent cornered Elizabeth while the argument between the Trevelyans was still raging in the laboratory. Elizabeth had sat upon the stairway to wait it out, miserably unable to draw her attention away. Both Kent and Katarina had been quite right, she was forced to concede in the privacy of her own thoughts. Gavin Trevelyan was as resistant to the idea as they had predicted he would be. It was his voice she could hear, dully, through the closed door. Brenda’s tones were still soft and reasonable, even after all this time.
Kent’s tones were soft also, but dangerous. His eyes glittered. “I thought I made it clear,” he said, “that I desired you to wait until the Russians had departed before distracting Trevelyan’s mind with this matter. If I did not believe you to be sincere in your professed pr
