She drew back, aghast at the bold irreverence. He laughed again at her expression.
"You think I meant that wrongly? I did not. I know well enough the way Tony is going, and the way I am. That is if he sticks to this! Are you never afraid he will not! Never afraid he will drift back to the easier ways?"
"No," she affirmed. A shining radiance lighted her confident eyes. She carried beneath her heart that which made Anthony and her forever one. Fear was done with; it no longer, wolf-like, hunted down her happiness.
"No? Do you think he will be content to be a chauffeur on a honeymoon all his life? I'm going to do something decent, Elsie; I'm going to help you clinch Tony Adriance. No, don't protest. I'm going to force my help on you both, wanted or not. Why, you can't keep him out of New York forever! Send him there to-night, to me, and I'll finish what you have begun."
Amazed and dismayed, she retreated from his urgency.
"Excuse me," she began a stiff refusal.
He cut her short with impatience.
"Then I'll leave a message for him. Don't look like that; I only want him to meet me in a public restaurant. Can't you trust me?"
"You do not understand."
"I understand more than you do," he retorted bluntly. "But if I am wrong, no harm will be done. I want to see him, anyhow. Are you afraid of me?"