"Quite all? I fear you have not been as frank as you would have me believe. That, in fact, explains my connection with the affair. Believe me when I say that I am interested only in seeing justice done to both of you young people, and in making sure that you do not deceive each other. It is an impulse of artless youth to trick itself in glowing colors, but you should know the whole truth about Buddy and he about you. If, after you are thoroughly acquainted with each other, you still maintain a mutual regard I shall have nothing further to say—except to beg that I be allowed to show my true friendship for both of you."
"Well, spring the bad news," said Miss Montague. Briskow now displayed the first open resentment he had shown since his defeat of the day before. "You licked me, Mr. Gray, an' I took my medicine," he growled. "You changed my looks, but you didn't change my mind. I'm waitin' for the folks to come, but I ain't goin' to listen to 'em."
"Let him get this off his chest, Buddy. Go ahead with the scandal,
Saint Anthony."
Gray bowed. "Suppose we ignore the early convent training and the Old Kentucky Home and agree that they are pleasant fictions, like the estate which you are in such imminent danger of inheriting. Those, I'm sure you will admit, are entirely imaginary." Buddy Briskow's swollen eyelids opened wider, his tumid lips parted, and an expression of surprise spread over his dropsical countenance.
"Step on it," sneered Miss Montague. "Dish the dirt!"
"Buddy's belief, however, that your stage career was blasted and your young life laid waste by the scion of a rich New York house should, in the interests of truth, be corrected."
"He knows I was married."
"True. But not to Bennie Fulton, the jockey."
"That is a—lie!"
"Nor that the estimable Mr. Fulton, instead of perishing upon the field of glory, dodged the draft and is doing as well as could be expected of a jockey who has been ruled off every track in the country, and is now a common gambler against whom the finger of suspicion is leveled—"