"What does it want you for?" He was making light of her now, his question accompanied by a hard, cynical look which told her that she could say as much or as little as she chose and he'd suit himself in the extent of his credulity. "Were you the lovely cashier in an ice cream store? And did you abscond with a dollar and ninety cents?"
"Don't you know of Paul Bellaire?" she flung at him angrily.
"I have never met the gentleman," he laughed at her, pleased with the flush which was in her cheeks.
"He died long before you were born," she said sharply. "If you talked with men you would know. He was my grandfather. We of the blood of Paul Bellaire are not shop girls, Mr. Drennen."
"Oho," sneered Drennen. "We are in the presence of gentry, then?"
"You are in the presence of your superior by birth if not in all other matters," she told him hotly.
"We, out here, don't believe much in the efficacy of blue blood," he said contemptuously.
"The toad has little conception of wings!" she gave him back, in the coin of his own contempt. "Queer, isn't it?"
He laughed at her, more amused than he had been heretofore and more interested.
"You haven't told me definitely about your terrible crime."