"You did, only you never use it. But this girl hasn't your father to draw from."
"No; but her father was an educated man—a civil engineer, she tells me, who came out here for one of the big railroads. He was something of an inventor, too. That's the reason he died poor—they nearly all do."
"But the mother?"
"Well, she's weak and tiresome now, but she's by no means common. She's broken by hard work, but she's naturally refined. No, the girl isn't so bad; it's the frightful girlhood she endured in that little hotel. I think it's wonderful that she could associate with the people she did—barbers and railway hands, and all that—and be what she is to-day. If she had married a man like young Bennett, for example, she would have gone far."
"She can't go far with Haney chained to her wrist," said the blunt Mrs. Congdon.
"But think what will happen when she is his widow!"
"And his legatee!"
"Precisely."
"She'll cut a wide swath. She's going to be handsome."
They had reached a danger-point, for Lee was on the verge of saying something about Ben's infatuation; but she didn't, and Alice knew why she didn't, for she asked, rather abruptly: "Won't you come over Thursday night? I'm going to take the Haneys to dinner at the hotel." She flushed under Lee's gaze. "It's really Bennie's party, and I'm going to make it as pretty as I can."