"Well," says he, filling up his pipe again, "I'd be happy enough fooling around this way, pushing in a few white checks once in a while—a few hundred thousand dollars. Anyways, I'd like it if I could lose once in a while—but then there's the kid."
"It comes around to her after all, Colonel, don't it?" says I.
"That's right," he says. "I play the game; she uses the winnings. She's going to be one of the richest girls in this whole town."
Seems like I couldn't get to tell him what I ought to. Every time he came around to the same place, talking about the kid. He didn't know as much as I did. I knew what'd make Old Man Wisner the happiest man alive—he'd feel that way if he knowed his hired man had got thick with our girl! He'd of encouraged that any way he could if he'd knowed anything about it. That would of pleased him. I had in my mind, too, how Bonnie Bell had looked at that hired man. So I set there, not having said a word yet and not daring to. It just seemed like I couldn't tell the old man.
It was getting towards night now before long and I hadn't made no break at all. I set and set, and didn't have no nerve. By and by it was too late to say anything that night.
We heard Bonnie Bell coming down the staircase, and we went to the door to meet her, like we did usual, because we liked to do that; she was so pretty when she was ready for dinner. The servants didn't look up to her pa and me very much, but they'd jump through hoops all the time for her.
She was dressed all up now in a pale blue dress, some sort of soft silk, and she had on all her diamonds, for she was shining all over. Her hair was high up and it had a little band on it, and a little pile of it stuck up behind on her head. Her neck was cut low, like they wore 'em at the hotel where we lived once, and her dress didn't have no sleeves in it. She had rings on her fingers, though not no bells on her toes—only little blue slippers; and her socks was pale blue, like we could see when she come down the stairs.
I don't expect there was any handsomer woman in the world than she was then—they don't make 'em any handsomer. We stood looking at her, us two cowmen, both in clothes that was always getting mussed up, and with tobacco in the pockets. We couldn't say a word. We got scared of her, I said; you would, often, when you looked at Bonnie Bell, she was so pretty. Yet she didn't know she had such looks.
"Daughter," says Old Man Wright, and he went up to her slow, like he was afraid of her, "you're very beautiful tonight," says he. "What makes you pale? You're a mighty fine girl. Dast you kiss your old pa before he goes in and gets into togs fit to eat with you?"
She looks at me and then at him, and she knows I haven't said nothing about that talk with the hired man. She was pale and didn't smile. She went up to her pa like she was tired—she didn't have much color that night in her face—and she just puts up her arms around her pa's neck and laid her head down on his shoulder, and didn't say a word. She didn't cry; she just let her head lay there.