But Milligan had already heard; he was back of the bar giving directions; guns were actually unlimbering. What would happen?
"Shall I get you out of this?" Landis asked the girl.
"Leave now?" She laughed fiercely and silently. "I'm just beginning to live! Miss Donnegan in action? No, sir!"
She would have given a good deal to retract that sentence, for it washed the face of Landis white with jealousy.
Surely Donnegan had built greater than he knew.
And suddenly he was there in the midst of the house. No one had stopped him—at least, no one had interfered with his servant. Big George had on a white suit and a dappled green necktie; he stood directly behind his master and made him look like a small boy. For Donnegan was in black, and he had a white neckcloth wrapped as high and stiffly as an old-fashioned stock. Altogether he was a queer, drab figure compared with the brilliant Donnegan of that afternoon. He looked older, more weary. His lean face was pale; and his hair flamed with redoubled ardor on that account. Never was hair as red as that, not even the hair of Lord Nick, said the people in Milligan's this night.
He was perfectly calm even in the midst of that deadly silence. He stood looking about him. He saw Gloster, the real estate man, and bowed to him deliberately.
For some reason that drew a gasp.
Then he observed a table which was apparently to his fancy and crossed the floor with a light, noiseless step, big George padding heavily behind him. At the little round table he waited until George had drawn out the chair for him and then he sat down. He folded his arms lightly upon his breast and once more surveyed the scene, and big George drew himself up behind Donnegan. Just once his eyes rolled and flashed savagely in delight at the sensation that they were making, then the face of George was once again impassive.
If Donnegan had not carried it off with a certain air, the whole entrance would have seemed decidedly stagey, but The Corner, as it was, found much to wonder at and little to criticize. And in the West grown men are as shrewd judges of affectation as children are in other places.