"Because he ain't the man to go to his women-folks when he gets into hot water. He'll keep it to himself; and they'll go on bluffing you, same as ever."
Miss Grierson pulled on her gauntlets and made ready to go, leisurely, as befitted her pose.
"That is where you are mistaken," she objected, coolly. "It isn't very often that I can give you a business tip, but this is one of the times when I can. When John Raymer died, he left an undivided half of his estate to his wife, the other half to be shared equally by the two children. At the present moment, every dollar the entire family has is invested in the iron plant. So, you see, I know what I am doing."
Jasper Grierson turned the leaf of a calendar-pad and made a brief memorandum.
"I savez: I'll break the three-cornered syndicate for you."
"You will do nothing of the kind," asserted the radiant daughter of men, with serene assurance. "You will let Mr. Raymer get himself into hot water, as you call it, and then, when I say the word, you'll reach in and pull him out."
"Oh, that's the how of it, is it? All right; anything you say goes as it lays. But I'm going to make one condition, this time: you'll have to keep cases on the game yourself, and say when. I can't be bothered keeping the run of your society tea-parties."
"I don't want you to. Don't be late for dinner: we are going to the Rodneys' for the evening."
When she was gone, the president selected another of the overgrown cigars from a box in the desk drawer, lighted it, and tilted back in the big arm-chair to envelop himself in a cloud of smoke. It was his single expensive habit—the never-empty box of Brobdingnagian cigars in the drawer—and the indulgence helped him to push the Yellow-Dog period into a remoter past.
After a time the smoke cloud became articulate, rumbling forth chucklings and Elizabethan oaths, mingling with musings idiomatic and profane. "By God, I believe she thought she was fooling me—I do, for a fact! But it's too thin. Of course, she wants to make the women kow-tow, but that ain't all there is to it—not by a jugful. But it's all right: she plays her own hand, and she's bully good and able to play it. If she's after Raymer's scalp, he might as well get ready to wear a wig, right now. I'll back her to win, every time."