He had begun with something like a note of reproach in his voice, but the last words were spoken in a tone of tender concern.
She got up from her chair, went to the door, and shut it and locked it, and then, with her half-smoked cigarette poised between her fingers, her face pale, and her eyes aflame, she faced him and said, in low, quick-flowing tones:
"Poppa, can't you see what's the matter?—you, who can see things months before they happen, and make millions by gambling on them?—you who did up Morgan himself over that wireless telegraphy combine—can't you see what's going on right here just under your nose?"
"My dear Chrysie, what are you talking about? I've not noticed anything particular happening, except what's happened in the right way. What's the trouble?"
"The trouble's that Frenchwoman—that second edition of Marie Antoinette. Can't you see what she's doing every hour and day of her life? Can't you see that she's as beautiful as an angel, and—well, as clever as the other thing, and that she's just playing her hand for all she's worth to get the man I want—the man I half-promised myself to a year ago!"
"Perhaps I've been too busy about other matters, and perhaps I never expected anything of the sort," replied her father; "and anyhow, men are fools at seeing this kind of thing; but if that's so, and you really do want him, why not promise yourself altogether and fix things up? There's no man I'd sooner have for a son-in-law; and if you want him, and he wants you, why——"
"It's just there, poppa, that I'm feeling bad about it," she said, coming nearer to him, and speaking with a little break in her voice. "I'm not so sure that he does want me now—at least, not quite as badly as he did that time when he asked me first in Buffalo. Don't you see that Frenchwoman's bewitched him? And who could blame him, after all? What do all the society papers say about her? The most beautiful woman in Europe—the great-great-grand-daughter of Louis the Magnificent himself, with the noblest blood of France in her veins! How could any man with eyes in his head and blood in his heart resist her? Why, I could no more compare with her than——"
"Than a wild rose in one of these beautiful English lanes could compare with a special variety of an orchid in a hothouse; and I guess, Chrysie, that if I haven't made a great mistake about Shafto Hardress—if he does get a bit intoxicated with the scent of the orchid, if it comes to winning and wearing the flower, he'll take the wild rose. If he doesn't—well, I guess you'll do pretty well without him."
"But I just can't do without him, poppa. You are the only one I'd tell it to, but that's so; and before that Frenchwoman gets him I'd have her out and shoot her. Women in her country fight duels. And there's more to it than that," she went on, after a little pause.
"And what might that be, Miss Fire-eater?" said her father, half-laughing, half-seriously.