"You congratulated me on my wealth. Am I to congratulate you the same way for your success with little Miss Neff?"
The Senator stared at him. "My success with little Miss Neff? What do you mean? Who's little Miss Neff? Alice?"
"Yes."
"The girl that was just here with her mother?"
"What success should I have with her?"
Forbes was confused, and tried to back out, but Tait would know, and Forbes at last explained: "Alice says that her mother is trying to marry her off to you."
Tait's eyes popped, and his mouth gaped stupidly, then he swore with sonority, and blurted out: "Do you mean that that old harridan of a Cornelia Neff has gone mad enough to—Why, Alice is younger than Mildred! I thought of her as a little tot. I tweaked her cheek and told her how sweet she was, and never dreamed she'd grown up yet. So that's why Cornelia has been so hospitable to me. I had a kind of sneaking fear that she wanted to add me to her own regiment of husbands. But it's her daughter, eh? Well, I'll be double—Is Alice in on the game, too?"
"Oh no; Alice is crazy to marry Stowe Webb."
"Poor old Jim Webb's boy, eh?" Forbes nodded. "Well, why doesn't she?"