“Yes,” mused Jarvis, “she is—worth while.”
“You wouldn’t catch me loafing around this dead and alive hole for many women,” David went on, drumming with his fingers on the edge of his chair. “As it is, I’ve had about all I can stand of it; and she won’t give in and marry me—won’t even wear my ring, till that client of yours—that peculiar, hard-to-get-along-with individual you’re representing—can be either bought off, or disposed of in some way. Naturally, neither of us want to be under obligations to—you!” he finished dramatically.
“Does she—suppose that I——”
David laughed again.
“No,” he said. “Oh, no! Barbie isn’t gifted with a very keen imagination. She swallowed all you told her about that singular, out-of-town client of yours. She seems to have implicit faith in you.”
A subtle lightning flash leaped from Jarvis’s eyes.
“She’s quite right to trust me,” he said calmly. “I’ll be glad if you can do the same.”
“Oh, come now, it’s too late for any more joking between us!” cried David roughly. “You can’t pull the wool over my eyes. You gave her that money, Jarvis, you know you did. And you did it just so as to tie her down. It’s a damned shame!”
Jarvis had risen, and David sprang eagerly from his chair to face him. The two men were of equal height, and for an instant David’s boyish blue eyes strove to master Jarvis, glance to glance. Then he drew back, baffled, furious.
“You aren’t going to stick to that cock-and-bull story a minute longer with me,” he blustered. “You know very well where the money came from!”