"I knew you'd be changing your mind, so I waited," she said with a smile of triumph. "I knew you'd pay!"
CHAPTER XI
A LOVE THAT PERSEVERED
Lillian Drew, as she had said, was not as high as she once was; so David, after making plain to her his poverty, managed to put her off with fifteen dollars—though for this amount she refused to turn over the letters. Before giving her the money he asked if she had kept secret her knowledge of Morton, and her answer was such as to leave him no fear. "This kind of thing is the same as money in the bank; telling it is simply throwing money away."
After he had paid her, and she had gone, he fell meditating upon this new phase of his situation. She would soon come again, he knew that—and his slender savings could not outlast many visits. When his money was gone and she still made demands, what then, if the ending of the deal was not fortunate?
And, now that he was quieter, the irony of this new phase of his situation began to thrust itself into him. Here he was, forced to pay money that the world might continue to believe him a thief! He laughed harshly, as the point struck home. He and Rogers were a pair, weren't they!—the great fear of one that he might be found out to be a thief, the great fear of the other that he might be found out not to be a thief. What would Helen Chambers think if she knew that not only was he trying to pay a debt he did not owe, but that he was paying to retain that debt?
Presently Rogers came in and they started for lunch, first leaving a note that would send Kate Morgan on a long errand so as to have the office clear for a conference with the Mayor in the afternoon. As they passed through the hall they brushed by Jimmie Morgan, who hastily slipped a bottle into his pocket. The experiment with Kate's father had not been successful. David had advised Rogers to discharge him, but Rogers, while admitting that to do so seemed a necessity, said that it would be as well to wait two or three weeks, when the end of the land deal would send them all away. David needed no one to tell him that what kept the father in his place was the fear of the daughter's disappointment.
An hour later David and Rogers, accompanied by the Mayor, re-entered the office, and the three plunged into a discussion of matters relating to the deal. After a time the Mayor asked:
"Chambers ain't showed his hand in this thing at all yet, has he?"