"Nobody ever accused her of that, but—well, does she think what Mrs. Neff thinks—that you have money?"
Forbes did not answer except with a blush. The Senator spared him any pressure on that point. He said, simply:
"Enslee has a lot of money—more than her father has. In fact, her father is in a very bad plight."
"How do you know?"
"I am about six bank directors, Harvey, and a few other things. Her father is about to be forced into involuntary bankruptcy; her father's pet railroad may go into receiver's hands to-day or to-morrow."
"Poor Persis!" Forbes groaned. "Poor Persis!"
There was such anguish in his tone that the Senator gripped his arm hard and murmured:
"Do you care so much for her?"
Forbes stopped short and stared into the old man's eyes. "A man like me loves once, and loves hard. If I lost her, my life wouldn't be worth the snap of my finger." And he added in a raucous voice, "Or the click of a trigger."
The Senator leaned heavily on him and closed his eyes in a wince of pain. He had heard his own dead son speak just that way.