“You know me,” he began again in his deliberate and abdominal bass. “And I know you. I’ve got ’o get this man Binhart. I’ve got ’o! He’s been out for seven months, now, and they’re going to put it up to me, to me, personally. Copeland tried to get him without me. He fell down on it. They all fell down on it. And now they’re going to throw the case back on me. They think it’ll be my Waterloo.”
He laughed. His laugh was as mirthless as the cackle of a guinea hen. “But I’m going to die hard, believe me! And if I go down, if they think they can throw me on that, I’m going to take a few of my friends along with me.”
“Is that a threat?” was the woman’s quick inquiry. Her eyes narrowed again, for she had long since learned, and learned it to her sorrow, that every breath he drew was a breath of self-interest.
“No; it’s just a plain statement.” He slewed about in his swivel chair, throwing one thick leg over the other as he did so. “I hate to holler Auburn at a girl like you, Elsie; but I’m going—”
“Auburn?” she repeated very quietly. Then she raised her eyes to his. “Can you say a thing like that to me, Jim?”
He shifted a little in his chair. But he met her gaze without a wince.
“This is business, Elsie, and you can’t mix business and—and other things,” he tailed off at last, dropping his eyes.
“I’m sorry you put it that way,” she said. “I hoped we’d be better friends than that!”
“I’m not counting on friendship in this!” he retorted.
“But it might have been better, even in this!” she said. And the artful look of pity on her face angered him.