“Not at the risk of hurting a woman’s feelings,” said the boy.
“How can it hurt her, my dear man, to tell her you are poor?”
“It’s a lie. I’m not up to lying to her; I don’t care to. And you mean to think that if I told her I was busted she would throw me over?”
“Like a shot, my green young friend—like a shot.”
“You haven’t a very good opinion of women,” Blair threw out with as near a sneer as his fine young face could express.
“No, not very,” agreed the pool player, who had continued his shots with more or less sangfroid. When Galorey had run off his string of balls he said, looking up from the table: “But I’ve got a very good opinion of that ‘nice girl’ you told me of when you first came, and I wish to Heaven she had kept you in the States.”
This caught the boy’s attention as nothing else had. “There never was any such girl,” he said slowly; “there never has been anywhere; I rather guess they don’t grow. You have made me a cad in listening to you, Gordon, but as to playing any of those comedy tricks you suggest, they are not in my line. If she is marrying me for my money, why, she’ll get it.”
“You’re a coward,” said Galorey, “like the rest of American husbands—all ideal and no common sense. You want to make a mess of your life. You haven’t the grit to get out of a bad job.”
He spurred himself on and his weak face grew strong as he felt he was compelling the boy’s attention. “If you only had half the character your father had, you wouldn’t make a mistake like this; you wouldn’t run blind into such a deal as this.”
Blair was impressed by his host. Galorey was so deadly in earnest and so honest, and, as Dan’s face grew set and hardened, his companion prayed for wisdom. “If I can only win through this without touching Lily hard,” he thought, and as he waited, Blair said: