“Awful sorry, Judson,” was his summing up of sympathy with his companion’s narrative. “Any dope I get I’ll pass along to you.”
Between gentlemen, however, there are understandings which need not be put into words, the principle of nothing for nothing being one of them. The conversation had not progressed much further before Gorry felt at liberty to say:
“Now, about this North Dakota Oil, Judson. I’d like awful well to get in on the ground floor of that. I’ve got a little something to blow in; and there’s a lot of suckers ready to snap up that stock before you print the certificates.”
Diplomacy being necessary here Judson practiced it. Gorry might indeed be seeking a way of turning an honest penny; but then again he might mean to sell out the whole show. On the one hand you couldn’t trust him, and on the other it wouldn’t do to offend him so long as there was a chance of his getting news of the girl. Judson could only temporize, pleading his lack of influence with the bunch who were getting 179 up the company. At the same time he would do his utmost to work Gorry in, on the tacit understanding that nothing would be done for nothing.
Allerton too had breakfasted late, at the New Netherlands Club, and was now with Miss Barbara Walbrook, who received him in the same room, and wearing the same hydrangea-colored robe, as on the previous morning. He had called her up from the Club, asking to be allowed to come once more at this unconventional hour in order to communicate good news.
“She’s willing to do anything,” he stated at once, making the announcement with the glee of evident relief. “In fact, it was by pure main force that I kept her from running away from the house this morning.”
He was dashed that she did not take these tidings with his own buoyancy. “What made you stop her?” she asked, in some wonder. “Sit down, Rash. Tell me the whole thing.”
Though she took a chair he was unable to do so. His excitement now was over the ease with which the difficulty was going to be met. He could only talk about it in a standing position, leaning on the mantelpiece, or stroking the head of the Manship terra cotta child, while she gazed up at him, nervously beating her left palm with the black and gold fringe of her girdle.
“I stopped her because—well, because it wouldn’t have done.”