Doyle returned to his old place on the hearth-rug, still thoughtful. He had paid no attention to Aker's views on Prohibition, nor to the paper laid upon the desk in the center of the room.
“Do you know that that girl in the hall will be worth forty million dollars some day?”
“Some money,” said Akers, calmly. “Which reminds me, Jim, that I've got to have a raise. And pretty soon.”
“You get plenty, if you'd leave women alone.”
“Tell them to leave me alone, then,” said Akers, stretching out his long legs. “All right. We'll talk about that, after dinner. What about this forty millions?”
Doyle looked at him quickly. Akers' speech about women had crystallized the vague plans which Lily's arrival had suddenly given rise to. He gave the young man a careful scrutiny, from his handsome head to his feet, and smiled. It had occurred to him that the Cardew family would loathe a man of Louis Akers' type with an entire and whole-hearted loathing.
“You might try to make her have a pleasant evening,” he suggested dryly. “And, to do that, it might be as well to remember a number of things, one of which is that she is accustomed to the society of gentlemen.”
“All right, old dear,” said Akers, without resentment.
“She hates her grandfather like poison,” Doyle went on. “She doesn't know it, but she does. A little education, and it is just possible—”
“Get Olga. I'm no kindergarten teacher.”