"I thought the understanding was that we were to work separately."
"Separately and together. Mutual exchange and actual profit, for each and for all. We got a mighty good thing in Payson, me and Vixley have, and we propose to work it for all it's worth. It'll be for your interest to come in and help us out. True, you have done something, but now you're lallagagging, so to speak, when you might be making a big haul. Payson's easy, and we can steer the girl your way, through him. He'll believe anything. All we got to do is to say my guides want him to have you for a son-in-law, and the trick is as good as turned. I agree to get him started this afternoon. He's a ten-to-one shot. I can see that with half an eye. It'll only be up to you to make good with the girl, and Lord knows that'll be easy for you. Now is that straight enough for you?"
Granthope rose and began to pace the floor nervously. He paused to straighten some magazines upon the table, he adjusted a photograph upon the wall, he moved back a chair; then he turned to her and said:
"I don't see how there's anything in this for me. I'm through with all that sort of thing, and I think, on the whole, I'll stay out. I'm going in for straight palmistry—and—well, another kind of game altogether. You wouldn't understand it even if I explained. I've got a good start, now, and I don't want to queer myself."
Madam Spoll made a theatrical gesture of surprise. "Lord, Frank, who would have thought of you doing the Sunday-school superintendent act on me! A body would think you'd never faked in your life! My Lord, I'm trying to lead you astray, am I?"
"That's all right. I don't pretend to be very virtuous, but some of this is getting a little raw for me."
Madam Spoll opened her eyes and her mouth. "What's got into you, anyway?"
"Something's got out, perhaps," he said, frowning. "At any rate, I don't care to make use of Miss Payson to help you rob her father."
"Rob her father!" Outraged innocence throbbed in Madam Spoll's voice. "Lord, Frank, you're plumb crazy! Why, he won't spend no money he don't want to, will he? He can afford it well enough! He'll never miss what we get out of him. You might think I was going to pick his pockets, the way you talk." She took him by the arm. "See here! You ain't really stuck on that Payson girl, are you? Why, if I didn't know you so well, I'd be almost ready to suspect you of it! But land, you've had women running after you ever since you went into business! But I notice you don't often stay away from the office more'n two days running."
"I don't know that my private affairs are any of your business," he said curtly. He was rather glad, now, of the chance for an outright quarrel.