“King, Mr. Pomello’s worth between three and four hundred thousand. Say, I’m not throwing a bluff. Straight goods. He told me so, offered to prove it.”
“How the devil——”
“Made it in moving pictures. He got in on the ground floor, and, King, if I marry him, he’ll make a will and leave it all to me.”
O’Leary was silent, staring at her. The thought of the price she might command seemed to make her a thousand times more desirable. He even felt a pang of jealousy.
“Gee, this is serious!” he said, and, being in a quandary, he rapped loudly on the table and selected the biggest cigar which was brought him.
Myrtle Popper was watching him with excited glance, her breath coming and going more rapidly as she noted the perturbation caused by the announcement.
“Of course, it ain’t a question of love,” he said more quietly, as he felt himself fortified behind a cloud of fragrant smoke.
“Not on my part.”
“Do you think you can carry it through?” he said, with frank curiosity. Down in his heart he was wondering at the insensibility of women in the very things in which men give them the greatest reverence.
“He’s kind, very kind,” she said, reflecting. “He’ll do anything I want, and, King, it sounds cold-blooded—but he’s over sixty, and he ain’t strong at that.”