“I know him better than you do,” she observed, bending her head and pleating the lace on her knee. “There is Dutch blood in him.”
“Not good Hollander, but common Dutch,” sneered Mortimer. “And you mean he'll squeeze a dollar till the eagle screams-don't you?”
She sat silent, pleating her lace with steady fingers.
“Well, that's all right, too,” laughed Mortimer easily; “let the Audubon Society worry over the eagle. It's a perfectly plain business proposition; we can do for him in a couple of winters what he can't do for himself in ten. Figure it out for yourself, Leila,” he said, waving a mottled fat hand at her.
“I—have,” she said under her breath.
“Then, is it settled?
“Settled—how?”
“That we form ourselves into a benevolent society of two in behalf of Plank?”
“I—I don't want to, Roy,” she said slowly.
“Why not?”