“Miss Carmen,” interposed Reverend Moore, “Jesus was the incarnate Son of God, and your remarks concerning him are––”
“Slow up, Pat!” interrupted Doctor Morton. “I’ll fight that out with you on the way home. Come, the meeting’s adjourned.”
“We will take up that question in our next discussion,” said Hitt. “But, wait; Carmen must give us just a short song before we part.”
The girl went immediately to the piano. As she passed Hitt, she squeezed his hand. A few minutes later the little group dispersed, with the melody of the girl’s voice trembling in their souls.
CHAPTER 8
For several days Ames reflected, and waited. Judging by the data which he was able to secure, the Express was eating up money at a fearful pace. To continue at that rate meant certain financial disaster in the near future. And yet the publishers of the rejuvenated sheet seemed never to count the cost of their experiment. Already they had begun the introduction of innovations that were startling and even mirth-provoking to staid, conservative publishers in the journalistic field. To survive the long period necessary for the education of the public taste to such things as the Express stood for demanded a source of income no less permanent than La Libertad itself. But at this thought Ames chuckled aloud.
Then an idea occurred to him. The Beaubien, of course, in 107 her crippled financial condition was affording the Express no monetary assistance. Carmen had nothing. Haynerd’s few thousands were long since dissipated. Hitt’s income was measured. But––ah, Miss Wall! And her estate was handled by Ames and Company! And handled, we may add, in such a manner that Miss Wall knew naught regarding it, except that she might draw upon it as one dips water from a hillside spring.
Thus Ames reflected. And as he meditated upon the new paper and its promoters, there gradually formed within him a consuming desire to see again the fair young girl who had drawn him so strongly, despite his mountainous wrath and his flaming desire to crush her when she boldly faced him in his own house on the night of his grand reception. Why had he let her escape him then? He had been a fool! True, women had meant little to him, at least in the last few years. But this girl had seemed to stir within him new emotions, or those long slumbering. He knew not, coarsely materialistic as was his current thought, that in him, as in all who came within the radius of her pure affection, she had swept chords whose music he had never heard before.