"Well, he is," said Jeffrey. "There's nothing you could do to him he'd mind, if it gave him good advertising."
"What does he want to do," asked the colonel, "when he comes out?"
"Get into the game again. Make big money. And if it's necessary, steal it. Not that he wants to bunco. He's had his dose. He's learned it isn't safe. But he'd make some dashing coup; he couldn't help it. Maybe he'd get nabbed."
"What a horrid person!" said Lydia. "How can you have anything to do with him?"
"Why, he's interesting," said Jeffrey, in a way she found brutal. "He's a criminal. He's got outside."
"Outside what?" she persisted.
"Law. And he wouldn't particularly want to get back, except that it pays. But I'm not concerned with what he does when he gets back. I want to show how it seemed to him outside and how he got there. He's more picturesque than I am, or I'd take myself."
Blessed Anne, who had no grasp, she thought, of abstract values, but knew how to make a man able for his work, met the situation quietly.
"You could have the blue chamber, couldn't he, Farvie? and do your writing there."
Lydia flashed her a reproachful glance. She would have scattered his papers and spilled the ink, rather than have him do a deed like that. If he did it, it was not with her good-will. Jeff had drawn his frown the tighter.