He paused and as she failed to ask what it was, he grunted and lit another cigarette.
"I wonder," she began after a thoughtful pause, "if Stoddard doesn't know where she is."
She had guessed it as surely as if he had stated his plan—he still hoped to find Mary Fortune. And then? Well, his plan was a little nebulous right there; but Mary held the necessary stock. If he could get control, in any way whatsoever, of that one per cent. of the stock he could laugh at Stoddard and take his dividends to carry on his fight in coppers. He had neglected her before, but this time it would be different; she could have anything she asked. And his detectives were hunting for her everywhere.
"Don't know," he answered after a dogged silence. "Why? what makes you think he does?"
She laughed.
"You don't know Mr. Stoddard as well as I do. He's a very successful man. Very thorough. If he set out to find Mary Fortune he'd be almost sure to do it."
"Hm," said Rimrock. "I'd better watch him, then. I'll call up about that to-morrow. Just have a man there to watch the door—she might be going in or out."
"What a sleuth you are!" she answered gravely, and then she broke down and laughed. "Well, well," she said, "'tis a battle of wits, but love may find a way. Do you believe in love?" she went on abruptly as Rimrock showed signs of pique. "I just wanted to know. You great, big Western men seem more fitted, somehow, for the part of copper kings. But tell me honestly, I feel so trifling to-night, do you believe in the great love for one woman? Or do you hold with these drawing-room philosophers that man is by nature polygamous? Never mind my feelings—just tell me."
She coiled up lazily in her soft plush great-chair and regarded him with languid eyes, and Rimrock never suspected that the words he had spoken would go straight to Stoddard that night. He forgot his rejection of a get-together plan and his final refusal of common stocks; all he saw was this woman with her half-veiled glances and the firelight as it played on her arms. He had confessed his hope of still finding Mary and of winning her back to his side; but as he gazed at the tiger lady, sprawling so negligently before him, his fickle thoughts wandered to her. He denounced the theory of these latter-day philosophers that man is essentially a brute and, still watching her furtively, he expressed the conviction that he could love the One Woman forever.