“Oh, the girl’s down here studying art. Mrs. Blair seems to have taken her up. Just how Mrs. Craighill got hold of her I don’t know, but it isn’t important. I could see it in Mrs. Craighill’s eye that she was glad the girl was there. The girl and her grandfather were down to see me the other day about the old man’s claim, but I couldn’t give him any encouragement. An old chump like that oughtn’t to have any. I don’t pose as a philanthropist, Mr. Wingfield, and it wouldn’t be loyal to the Colonel, considering the long years I spent with him, to give comfort to his enemies.”
Walsh lifted his head virtuously and lost himself in a prodigious cloud of smoke. Wingfield, watching for a reappearance of the heavy, inscrutable face, could have sworn that he saw a smile curl the old man’s thin lips.
“Oh, of course! You have always been loyal to the Colonel. Nobody would question that.”
“I couldn’t do anything for Gregory, the poor old ass, but I gave the girl a tip to-night to tell him to go ahead.”
Wingfield, with his elbow on the table, stroked his beard. Walsh was really the most interesting person he knew.
“Well, she’s a pretty girl, and I don’t blame you,” he remarked, leadingly.
“All girls are pretty,” growled Walsh. “But she seemed sensible and she has fine teeth. By the way, I’m going to take the madam out driving to-morrow. I made a date with her to-night. You see, the Colonel won’t be home until the next morning and—well, you don’t get a snow like this every winter—no-siree!”
Walsh poked the lemon peel in the bottom of his glass with a spoon while his announcement sank into Wingfield’s consciousness.
“I must say that you have your nerve! Have you ever appeared in public with any woman since you came to town?”
“Nope; but it is time I was beginning. I like Mrs. Craighill; she’s the wife of my old employer and I’m an old man and she’s a young woman. If I can’t take her driving behind the best roadster in Pennsylvania I should like to know why! Besides, if she’s driving with me she ain’t in any mischief. I guess I’m safe!”