"Sure it's true," Sylvester had said coolly. But he had not felt cool. He had felt shaken and confused. The boy's entire self-forgetfulness, his entire absence of fear, had made Hudson feel that he was talking to a stranger, a not inconsiderable one.
"It's true, then." Dickie had drawn a big breath. "You—you"—he seemed to swallow an epithet—"you'll let that girl go into your filthy saloon and make money for you by her—by her prettiness and her—her ignorance—"
"Say, Dickie," his father had drawled, "you goin' to run for the legislature? Such a lot of classy words!" But anger and alarm were rising in him.
"You've fetched her away out here," went on Dickie, "and kinder got her cornered and you've talked a lot of slush to her and you've—"
Here Girlie came to the rescue.
"Well, anyway, she's a willing victim, Dickie," Girlie had said.
Dickie had flashed her one look. "Is she? I'll see about that.
Where's Sheila?"
And then, there was Sheila's memory. Dickie had come upon her in a confusion of boxes, her little trunk half-unpacked, its treasures scattered over the chairs and floor. Sheila had lifted to him from where she knelt a glowing and excited face. "Oh, Dickie," she had said, her relief at the escape from Mrs. Hudson pouring music into her voice, "have you heard?"
He had sat down on one of the plush chairs of "the suite" as though he felt weak. Then he had got up and had walked to and fro while she described her dream, the beauty of her chosen mission, the glory of the saloon whose high priestess she had become. And Dickie had listened with the bitter and disillusioned and tender face of a father hearing the prattle of a beloved child.
"You honest think all that, Sheila?" he had asked her patiently.