Conniston went back into the bath-room rather seriously. But a moment later Hapgood heard him chuckling again.
The Japanese boy came to summon them, and they followed him, once more clean and feeling respectable, into a cozy little breakfast-room where their hostess was waiting for them. And over their cold meat, tinned fruits and vegetables, and fresh milk Conniston told her of their misfortune. She laughed with him at his account of the winning of the two horses and seemed disposed to indorse his careless view of the whole episode rather than Hapgood's pessimistic outlook.
"It's all right, I suppose, since Conniston has a rich father," Roger admitted, with a sigh.
She regarded him curiously for a moment.
"Some men," she said, quietly, "have been known to go to work and make money for themselves when they needed it."
Conniston told her of his little friend William, of Indian Creek, adding, carelessly, "I'm glad I don't have to feel like that."
"You mean that you had rather have money given to you than to feel that you had earned it yourself?"
"Quite naturally, Miss Crawford. My father is William Conniston, Senior. Maybe you have heard of him?"
He was proud to be his father's son, to have his own name so intimately connected with that of a man who was not only a millionaire many times over, but who was a power in Wall Street and known as such to the four ends of the earth.
"Yes. I have heard of him. He made his own money, didn't he? In the West, too."