Laure was staring blindly after him when Joe McCaskey spoke to her.
"Have a dance?" he inquired.
She undertook to answer, but her lips refused to frame any words; silently she shook her head.
"What's the idea? A lovers' quarrel?" McCaskey eyed her curiously, then he chuckled mirthlessly. "You can come clean with me. I don't like him any better than you do."
"Mind your own business," stormed the girl in a sudden fury.
"That's what I'm doing, and minding it good. I've got a lot of business—with that rat." Joe's sinister black eyes held Laure's in spite of her effort to avoid them; it was plain that he wished to say more, but hesitated. "Maybe it would pay us to get acquainted," he finally suggested. "Frank and me and the Count are having a bottle of wine upstairs. Better join us."
"I will," said Laure, after a moment. Together they mounted the stairs to the gallery above.
CHAPTER XXIII
"Wal, w'at I tol' you?" 'Poleon Doret exclaimed, cheerfully. "Me, I'm cut off for poor man. If one dose El Dorado millionaire' give me his pay-dump, all de gold disappear biffore I get him in de sluice-box. Some people is born Jonah." Despite this melancholy announcement 'Poleon was far from depressed. On the contrary, he beamed like a boy and his eyes were sparkling with the joy of again beholding his "sister."
He had returned from the hills late this evening and now he had come to fetch Rouletta from her work. This was his first opportunity for a word with her alone.
The girl was not unmoved by his tale of blighted expectations; she refused, nevertheless, to accept it as conclusive. "Nonsense!" she said, briskly. "You know very well you haven't prospected your claim for what it's worth. You haven't had time."