Of course there was always a chance of the investors realizing heavily if Casey Town turned up big production. Keith hoped it would. Provided he made all the money he wanted, he was always willing to have others get hold of some, especially when he would be regarded by them as the benefactor who had given them the golden opportunity. He would reap the major harvest, and success would open up the way for other fields—perhaps in oil. Keith had some associates who rather scoffed at his gold-mining promotion as out-of-date. Oil was quicker, more in the public eye. Every time the price of gasoline or kerosene went up the American automobile-owning public thought of oil, they were primed perpetually toward its possibilities.
But Keith was still in gold. He knew all the technique of that branch of speculation and Blake's campaign was carried out most successfully. Mrs. Keith descended overwhelmingly upon Molly at her school, chauffeur and footman on the driving seat of her luxurious sedan; gasped a little when she saw that Molly was a beauty, could be made an unusual one with the right dressing, the right setting.
Her brain, which was keen enough in business matters, told her that she could improve her husband's program of using Molly as an attraction to bring investors to the Keith residence. It might be a good thing—Mrs. Keith was quick at dealing with the future—if her son, Donald, fell in love with Molly, the heiress. She wrote to the Three Star Ranch, to Sandy Bourke, guardian of Molly Casey, without Molly's knowledge. Sandy read the letter aloud to his partners.
Dear Mr. Bourke:
I feel that I should write this letter to you although I have never met you, rather than my husband, since the question is one that a woman can handle better than a man,—that only a woman can understand and appreciate.
I have seen your Molly and she has entirely captivated me. She is really wonderful, with wonderful possibilities. She is more than pretty, she is talented and she possesses character in a marked degree that sets her aside from the rest. It is this difference, this broadness of view, perhaps a certain intolerance of conventionality, that make me feel that, much as it has done for her, and that has been largely due to her own endeavors, this school, or any school, is not the place for her best development.
I want to take her into my home, Mr. Bourke. She is practically a woman grown, much more so than the girls with whom she associates. This, I suppose, is due to her early experiences. There she would be under my own eye, which will be a maternal one, and she can have private tutoring in what she still lacks. I think she feels the need of the companionship and advice of an older woman, rather than that of the girls at the school.
I wish I could talk with you personally about this. Letters are such inadequate things. But I know, from Mr. Keith, that you have her interests at heart—and so have I. I shall dearly love to have her with me. I have, of course, said absolutely nothing to her about this plan before I hear from you, but I feel confident from what I have seen of her, that she will be happier in a home, with some one, who, however poorly, may take the place of the mother she must have missed all these years.
Let me hear from you soon. If my health and other matters permit, I must try to come out with Molly before very long. Mr. Keith has seen this letter and approves of my suggestion to have Molly with us.
Most sincerely yours,
Elizabeth Vernon Keith.