“Women have been known to desert their brothers before this! I mean to make her love me, and if I do—how she could love a man!—I fancy I can persuade her.”
“I like Mark and I don’t want to see him thrown down. He’s not what you might call in love with Ora—he got discouraged pretty early in the game. But he’s fond of her and proud of her, and he has ambitions. She could help him a lot.”
Valdobia lit another cigarette.
“Better have a liaison and get over it. Then he’ll never know, and what men don’t know don’t hurt them.”
“I shall do nothing of the sort. I mean to marry her. Will you help me or not?”
“Ora’d look fine all right in that old palace of yours. It would suit her a long sight better than Butte, or even Washington—let alone Helena; Mark wouldn’t mind a bit being Governor of Montana. Have you got a castle in the country?”
“I have several.”
“Fine! I’d visit you every year.”
“No one would be half as welcome.”
“I’ve been away from America so long and seen so much, and Butte seems so far away, that I’ve kind of lost my bearings. If you’d come over there and lay your siege, I guess I’d fight you to the last ditch.”