“No, I didn’t threaten Hawarden to any very great extent,” assented Conover, “I just reminded him, quiet-like, that I’m payin’ his wife $8,000 a season to help Desirée in the society game, an’ that maybe the news might leak out an’ the supplies be cut off if I was fired.”
“Mrs. Hawarden!” ejaculated Caine. “Are you in earnest?”
“I’m not given to springin’ measly jokes. I wanted that the little girl should have a show. She’s prettier an’ better educated an’ cleverer’n any of the people in the gold-shirt bunch. But I couldn’t get her into that crowd. I read in a noospaper about an English duchess that made a lot of coin by puttin’ American girls into the right surroundin’s, an’ it gave me an idee. There’s a slump in the Duchess market here at Granite. But the town’s crawlin’ with old fam’lies that are shy on cash. An’ about the oldest an’ hardest up are the Hawardens. So I arranged it with her. It was dead easy. She acted shy of the deal just at first; but that was only her way, I s’pose. Women that’s coy after they stop bein’ young an’ pretty always reminds me of a scarecrow left standin’ in a field after all the crop’s been carted away.”
“Does Miss Shevlin know about—?”
“Does she know? What do you think she is? No, son, she don’t know, an’ I’ll break the neck of the blackguard that dares tell her. You’re the only one except the Hawardens that’s onto it.”
“So I am the logical candidate for neck-breaking if the story gets out? Don’t be afraid, old man. I’d break my own neck sooner than to have Miss Shevlin’s pleasure spoiled. I suppose she does get pleasure from being a protegée of Mrs. Hawarden?”
“Pleasure? She’s tickled to death. It’s worth the money twice over to hear her tell ’bout the places she goes. Say, Caine, you know more about that game than I do. Has she got any chance?”
“Any chance?” echoed Caine in perplexity.
“You know what I mean. Her father was kind of common,—like me. But Desirée ain’t. Even you said that once. An’ I guess there’s few who can spot a streak of mud-color quicker’n you can. I’ve got her into a crowd where her father an’ the rest of her folks could never have gone. What I want to know is: Has she got a chance of stayin’ there always? Of bein’ took up permanent by ’em an’ made one of ’em?”
“It depends entirely, I should say, on whom she marries.”