"Good-bye, Winnie. You're going to be happy, too, some day. I'll always be proud of your friendship and what you have offered me. Our trails may cross again some day, and if they do I shall be glad, indeed. Till then, good luck and every wish of my heart to you, my pal!"
Winnie pressed her hands, then dropped them and stumbled from the room. In the machine, he turned and waved. Willa stood in the window, her slender form outlined against the light behind her, her small head proudly erect, and it seemed to the boy's blurred, exalted gaze as if an aura of golden haze like a halo surrounded it. A passing glance and he was swept along into the darkness ahead, the vision and the memory of her all that remained to him.
CHAPTER XXI
THE RETURN OF TIA JUANA
"I tell you, Starr, it's all very well to play a waiting game, but we've got to start something and start it soon, or we'll be up against the worst fix we've ever struck in our lives, and that will be going some!" Harrington Chase paused in his restless pacing of the private office to regard his partner with troubled eyes. "We've got to make a big killing or we're due to go under, and you know what that'll mean."
Wiley flung himself around in his chair to face the other.
"I've moved heaven and earth to find that old she-devil!" he exclaimed. "The biggest obstacle is out of our path now, as you very well know, and if Tia Juana would only turn up, we could put it all over her. Gentleman Geoff's Billie is no longer in a position to interfere if she wanted to, thanks to my fortunate discovery of the adoption papers in Arizona, and when I get my hands on the old woman——"
"You've been saying that for the last month," Chase observed, adding with a sly smile: "I'm not undervaluing the lucky chance that put those documents in your way, my dear fellow! What has happened, anyway, in regard to that affair? Until the Halsteads and North have proved the validity of the papers they won't make any premature announcement, of course, and I'm only supposed to share the knowledge, common in their circle, that Willa Murdaugh has gone to spend the winter in the South."
"Oh, they'll spring the news about the beginning of Lent, I imagine, when the social calendar is clear and they won't have so many explanations to make," Wiley responded carelessly. "It's bound to be a nine-days' wonder, but things move rapidly in this town and she'll be almost forgotten by Easter."