If she were Bully Presby’s daughter, he might never gain her father’s consent, though the Croix d’Or were in the list of producers. He thought of that harsh encounter on the trail, and his assertion that he was capable of attending to his own business and asked neither friendship nor favor from any man under the skies; of Bully Presby’s gruff reply, and of their passing each other a second time, in the streets of Goldpan, without recognition. The girl in front of him, so unlike 235 her father save for the firm chin and capable brow, did not appear to sense his perturbation.
“Well,” she said, “it doesn’t matter. I am not jeal––– I’m not any different––just the same. Come back here and sit down, please, while I go ahead with what I wish to say.”
The interlude appeared to have rendered her more self-possessed.
“So, on that day I met you, I became quite rich. That money has rested in a bank, doing neither me nor any one else any benefit. I think I have drawn one check, for twenty-five dollars, just to convince myself that it was all reality. And I am, in some ways, the daughter of my father. I want my money to work. I’m quite a greedy young person, you see. I want to lend you as much of that money as you need.”
“Impossible!”
“Not at all. I have as much faith in you, perhaps more, than this Mister Sloan, of whom I’m a trifle jealous. I want to have a share in your success. I want to make you feel that, even if I’m not the daughter of a lumberman, I am, and shall have a right to be, interested in––in––the Croix d’Or.”
“Impossible!”
“It isn’t any such thing. I mean it!”
“Then it’s because I haven’t made it plain to you––haven’t made you understand that even now I am thinking, to preserve my honor, of telling Mr. Sloan that it is too much of a venture. If I should decline to venture his money, why should I–––?”