"Your father is—obdurate. Says he won't submit to blackmail."
"Has Slosson abated his terms?"
"I don't think so."
Hazel rose quickly from her seat on the desk. She walked slowly across the room and propped herself in the doorway, in precisely the same position as her father had occupied. Gordon's eyes watched her every movement. He knew she was considering deeply, and intuition warned him that the result of her consideration might easily conflict with that which he had in his mind. But he was not prepared for the announcement which came a moment later.
She came back to the desk quickly, and took up her old place on it. Her pretty lips were firmly set, and she gazed soberly and unflinchingly down into Gordon's apprehensive blue eyes.
"I shall have to deal with David Slosson," she said quietly. Then, with a light, expressive shrug: "It won't be pleasant—not by quite a lot. But—it's got to be done, and done quickly. Father won't give way, so—he must."
But, in a moment, Gordon's protest came with all the enthusiasm of his impulsive nature. To think of this beautiful child having to defile herself by cajoling a creature like this Slosson moved him to a pitch of distraction. Whatever else he did not know, he knew the meaning of expression when men gaze at women. And he had not forgotten his first morning in Snake's Fall.
"Miss Mallinsbee," he cried, his big body leaning forward in his earnestness, and all his feelings displayed in his ingenuous face, "I'd rather let this thing go plumb smash than that you should be brought into contact with that filthy scum again. Say, you're too young, and good, to understand such creatures. I know——"
Hazel was smiling whimsically down into his anxious eyes.
"And you're so old and wise you can see plumb through him," she cried. Then with an exact reproduction of his manner, she leaned forward so that their faces were within a foot of each other. "You two Solomons can't deal with him worth two cents. My daddy's too obstinate, and you—are too prejudiced. He's got to be dealt with, and I'm going to do it. In a case like this a girl's wiser than any two men."