“No, but I will be soon—when you and I are married. You’re surely her uncle, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. No doubt about that.”
“Well, then——”
“We won’t be married till we make sure we get the money!” he announced, firmly.
The woman looked sulky.
“You’ve got the money, haven’t you?” she demanded. “The girl’s father is dead, isn’t he?”
“Listen, Elsie,” he said, irritably. “I’ve told you about this before, but you can’t seem to get it through your thick head. There were two of us boys, and the old man. My mother died young. Well, I was supposed to be a ‘bad egg,’ but my brother was everything my father admired. That’s the kid’s father, you see. He married early, but soon after the child was born he and his wife were killed in an automobile accident. So, of course, Dad—the kid’s grandfather—took her to raise.”
“But I’ve heard all that!” interrupted Mrs. Fishberry.
“Sure you have. But you don’t understand about the old man’s money. It seems he left a will hidden in the house, and nobody could find it. And I happen to know that he meant all his money to go to the kid, and not a cent to me.”
He smiled, in a way that was always fascinating to women, and Elsie Fishberry smiled, too. How clever he was!