Letty Lane nodded. “So am I. But,” with some sharpness, “I don’t see why you speak that way. I’ve earned my way. I made a fortune for Roach all right.”
“You mean the man you married?”
“Married—goodness gracious, what made you think that?” She threw back her pretty head and laughed—a laugh with the least possible merriment in it. “Oh, Heavens, marry old Job Roach! So they say that, do they? I never heard that. I hear a lot, but I never heard that fairy tale.” She put her hands to her checks, which had grown crimson. “That’s not true!”
Dan swore at himself for his tactless stupidity.
Ruggles had heard both sides. She was adored by the poor, and, as far as rumor knew, she spent thousands on the London paupers, and the Westerner, who had never been given to reveling in scandals and to whom there was something wicked in speaking ill of a woman, no matter whom she might be, listened with embarrassment to tales he had been told in answer to his other questions; and turned with relief to the stories of Letty Lane’s charity, and to the stories of her popularity and her success. They were more agreeable, but they couldn’t make him forget the rest, and now as he looked at her face across the bouquet of orchids and ferns, it was with a sinking of heart, a great pity for her, and still a decided enmity. He disapproved of her down to the ground. He didn’t let himself think how he felt, but it was for the boy. Ruggles was not a man of the world in any sense; he was simple and Puritan in his judgments, and his gentle nature and his big heart kept him from pharisaical and strenuous measures. He had been led in what he was doing to-night by a diplomacy and a common sense that few men east of the Mississippi would have thought out under the circumstances.
“Tell Mr. Ruggles,” he heard Dan say to her, “tell him—tell him!”
And she answered:
“I was telling Mr. Blair that, as he is so frightfully rich, I want him to give me some money.”
Ruggles gasped, but answered quietly:
“Well, he’s a great giver, Miss Lane.”