“Don’t you worry about that,” Wallingford cordially reassured her. “It was my own fault; but I wasn’t looking for anything worse than a knife in my back or a piece of lead pipe behind the ear. There’s no use in crying over spilled milk. The thing to do now is to get even, and I want you to help me.”
“Don’t you mix in, Beauty,” admonished the hired mother, but the Beauty was thoughtful for a while. “Mother” was there to give good advice, but the Beauty only took it if she liked it.
“I really can’t afford it,” she said, by and by; “but I’ve got some principles about me, and I don’t like to see a good sport like you take a rough dose from a lot of cheaps like them; so you show me how and I’ll mix in just this once.”
Wallingford hesitated in turn.
“How do you like Block?” he inquired.
Beauty Phillips sniffed her dainty nose in disdain.
“He won’t do,” she announced with decision. “I’ve found out all about him. He’s got enough money to star me in a show of my own for the next ten years, but he’s not furnished with the brand of manners I like. I’ll never marry a man I can’t stand. I’ve got a few principles about me! Why, yesterday he tried to treat me real lovely, but do you know, he wouldn’t give me the name of a horse, even when he put a hundred down for me in the third race? There I sat, with a string of ’em just prancing around the track, and not one to pull for. Then after the race is over he comes and tosses me five hundred dollars. ‘I got you four to one on the winner,’ says he. Why, it was just like giving me money! Jimmy, I’m going out to dinner with him to-night, then I’m going to turn him back into the paddock, and you can pal around with me again until I find a man with plenty of money that I could really love.”
“Don’t spill the beans,” advised Wallingford hastily. “Block thinks you’re about the maple custard, don’t he?”
“He’s crazy about me,” confessed the Beauty complacently.