“There’s Dalken and his daughter—remember we had him to dinner in Washington when I first took my Seat?” whispered the gentleman to his wife.
A reporter for a New York paper stood near and overheard the remark. Instantly he made a note of it and drew nearer to his source of information. He heard the Representative speak of the White Crest and the cruise, and he decided to look up the yacht and its owner in the morning.
Not a word was spoken between Mr. Dalken and his daughter after they left the hotel and boarded the yacht. No one was in sight on deck and the owner accompanied Elizabeth to her room and went in behind her. Then he closed the door and turned to have a word with her.
He spoke tenderly at first, but she ignored him completely and refused to answer his questions. Finally he said sternly: “Elizabeth, I wish you to answer my questions in regard to this escapade.”
“Well, I don’t care if you do! I do not have to speak to you unless I wish to!” snapped she.
“I am your father, and I represent your guardian in the law. I am responsible, to a certain extent, for all your wrong-doings, hence I demand that you tell me how you came to go to that vile den where I found you with those despicable men.”
Elizabeth stared defiantly at her father, then she remarked: “You may demand, but I do not need to reply.”
Mr. Dalken then tried to show her what a risk she had taken in going to a place where a murder or other crime was apt to happen at any moment if one of the habitues became too drunk to control himself.
Elizabeth narrowed her eyelids and looked at her father in a manner that reminded him unpleasantly of her mother whenever she had been cornered in a scandalous situation. Then the girl spoke drawlingly.
“You are such a fossil when it comes to social matters! Why, there isn’t a girl I know who would not give her head to have been in my shoes to-night. But how can you know that two of those men are the finest catches of the season. Henri Aspinwall is a multi-millionaire from South America, and James Stickney is one from New York. I had both of them at my feet this evening, and then you came to ruin my prospects of a proposal!” Elizabeth actually wept tears of mortification at her father’s untimely appearance in Satan’s Kitchen.