She bowed him out with a calm, pleasant smile.
Down-stairs, Professor Vixley was awaiting her. With him was a shrewd-eyed, bald-headed, old man, with iron spectacles, his forehead wrinkled in horizontal lines, as if it had been scratched with a sharp comb. He had a three days' growth of red beard on his chin and cheeks, and his teeth, showing in a rift between narrow, bloodless lips, were almost black. He wore a greasy, plaid waistcoat, a celluloid collar much in need of the laundry and a ready-made butterfly bow.
"Why, how d'you do, Doctor Masterson?" said Madam Spoll. "I was hoping you would get around to-day, so's we could talk business. I suppose you put him wise about Payson, Vixley?"
"Certainly," said the Professor. "We're goin' to share and share alike, and work him together as long as it lasts. How did you get on with him to-day?"
"Oh, elegant," was the answer, as she took a seat on the couch and put up her feet. "I don't believe we're going to be able to use Flora, though."
Professor Vixley's black eyes glistened and he grinned sensuously. "Why, couldn't you get a rise out of him?"
Madam Spoll shook her huge head decidedly. "No, that sort of game won't work on him. He ain't that kind. I went as far as I dared and give him a good chance, but he wouldn't stand for it."
"That's all right, Gert," said Vixley, "I ain't sayin' but what you're a fine figure of a woman, but he's sixty and he might prefer somebody younger. You know how they go. Now, Flora, she's a peach. She'd catch any man, sure! She knows the ropes, too, and she can deliver the goods all right. Look at the way she worked Bennett. Why, he was dead stuck on her the first time he seen her. She put it all over Fancy at the first rattle out of the box."
Again Madam Spoll's crisp, iron-gray curls shook a denial. "See here, Vixley!" she exclaimed, "I ain't been in this business for eighteen years without getting to know something about men. Bennett was a very different breed of dog. I can see a hole in a ladder, and I know what I'm talking about. Payson ain't up to any sort of fly game. He's straight, and he's after something different, you take my word for that. If there was anything in playing him that way, I'd be the first one to steer him on to Flora Flint, but he'd smell a mice if she got gay with him and he'd be so leary that we couldn't do nothing more with him."
"Well, what did you get, then?" Vixley asked.