The broker shrugged his shoulders.
"I hope you'll make your money," he said carelessly, "because, I tell you frankly, that's the only way you can hold this girl. She's full of heroics now, self sacrifice, and all the things that go to make up the third act of a play, but the minute she comes to darn her stockings, wash out her own handkerchiefs and dry them on the windows and send out for a pail of coffee and a sandwich for lunch, take it from me—she'll change her tune!" Suddenly confronting his rival, he went on: "You're in Colorado writing her letters once a day with no cheques in them. That may be all right for some girl who hasn't tasted the joy of easy living, full of the good things of life, but one who for ten years has been doing very well in the way these women do, is not going to let up for any great length of time. So take my advice, if you want to hold her, get that money quick, and don't be so damned particular how you get it, either."
Madison started quickly to his feet, his fists clenched. Savagely he exclaimed:
"Of course, you know you've got the best of me——"
"How?" demanded Brockton coolly.
"We're guests. I have to control myself."
"No one's listening," said the broker.
"'Tisn't that," snapped the other impatiently. "If it was anywhere but here, if there was any way to avoid all the nasty scandal, I'd come a-shootin' for you and you know it——"
"You're a fighter, eh?" sneered Brockton.
"Perhaps," snapped the journalist. There was a dangerous gleam in his eye, as he went on: "Let me tell you this. I don't know how you make your money, but I know what you do with it. You buy yourself a small circle of sycophants; you pay them well for feeding your vanity, and then you pose with a certain frank admission of vice and degradation. And those who aren't quite as brazen as you call it manhood. Manhood?" he echoed contemptuously. "Why, you don't know what the word means! Yours is the attitude of a pup and a cur."