"Do you know," he said presently, "that they are probably Gratton and
Swen Brodie and their outfit?"
"What of it?" asked Gloria, erect and defiant.
"You know that Gratton has set out to ruin your father? That he's a double-dealing scoundrel? That Brodie is worse? That neither is hardly the sort for a girl to trust herself to in a place like this?"
"I am not given much choice," Gloria informed him with high insolence.
"That's a fact," he conceded with a grunt.
He'd give a thousand dollars right now to be well rid of her; yes, and have Gratton and Brodie and the rest of them come on looking for any sort of a row that suited their ilk. He told himself that with savage emphasis, but he asked: could he let her go?
"Before I go," said Gloria when she thought that he had nothing further to add, "I want to say just one thing: father has always considered you his best friend. I shall lose no time in telling him what you really are."
Gloria's remark, coming just when it did in King's perplexity, settled his decision firmly on him. The girl was a vicious little fool; so he was determined to think of her unequivocally. But she was, after all, Ben Gaynor's daughter and, furthermore, the apple of Ben's eye. She was in King's keeping; he had been eminently to blame for bringing her here, his was the responsibility. Gratton's eye was the sort that soils a woman.
"You are not going," he said suddenly, turning upon her. "I won't allow you to put yourself in Gratton's or Brodie's dirty hands."
A quick light was in her eyes, a quick spurt of satisfaction in her heart. In King's decision she read the assurance that he was still madly in love with her, that now his jealousy stirred him. She lifted her chin and with her little bundle under her arm came forward, walking confidently.