“Why not?”
“Well, I feel this way about it. It isn’t worth two thousand dollars. But if I win the prize it may be worth that to the magazine—the advertising and all that.”
“Isn’t that splitting hairs?”
“Perhaps, but it’s the way I feel.”
“But if you don’t win the prize you won’t have anything.”
“No.”
“And you’ll be out two thousand dollars.” The lion in the Zoo was snarling.
And above him, breathing an upper air, was this young eagle. “I’ll be glad to give the sketch to you if it comes back,” said Baldy, coolly, “but I rather think it will stick.”
It was, in a way, a dreadful moment for Towne. There was young Baldwin sitting on the edge of the table, swinging a leg, debonair, defiant. And Edith laughing in her sleeve. Frederick knew that she was laughing. He was as red as a turkey cock.
It was Jane who saved him from apoplexy. She was really inordinately proud of Baldy, but she knew the dangers of his mood. And she had her duties as hostess.