"Jack, you're angry."
"Why should I be? I hate to see you fooled by the bluff of a tramp, though."
"Tush! Do you think I'm fooled by it? But it's an interesting bluff, Jack, don't you think?"
"Nelly, he's interesting enough to make you blush; by heaven, the hound is lookin' right at you now, Nelly!"
He had pressed her suddenly against the wall and she struck back desperately in self-defense.
"By the way, what did he want to see you about?"
It spiked the guns of Landis for the time being, at least. And the girl followed by striving to prove that her interest in Donnegan was purely impersonal.
"He's clever," she ran on, not daring to look at the set face of her companion. "See how he fails to notice that he's making a sensation? You'd think he was in a big restaurant in a city. He takes the drink off the tray from that fellow as if it were a common thing to be waited on by a body-servant in The Corner. Jack, I'll wager that there's something crooked about him. A professional gambler, say!"
Jack Landis thawed a little under this careless chatter. He still did not quite trust her.
"Do you know what they're whispering? That I was afraid to face him!"