Cowperwood, who was always genially sportive when among strong men—a sort of bounding collie—and who liked to humor those who could be of use to him, agreed.
“It sounds interesting to me. Certainly I’ll go. Tell me more about her. Is she good-looking?”
“Rather. But better yet, she is connected with a number of women who are.” The Colonel, who had a small, gray goatee and sportive dark eyes, winked the latter solemnly.
Cowperwood arose.
“Take me there,” he said.
It was a rainy night. The business on which he was seeing the Colonel required another day to complete. There was little or nothing to do. On the way the Colonel retailed more of the life history of Nannie Hedden, as he familiarly called her, and explained that, although this was her maiden name, she had subsequently become first Mrs. John Alexander Fleming, then, after a divorce, Mrs. Ira George Carter, and now, alas! was known among the exclusive set of fast livers, to which he belonged, as plain Hattie Starr, the keeper of a more or less secret house of ill repute. Cowperwood did not take so much interest in all this until he saw her, and then only because of two children the Colonel told him about, one a girl by her first marriage, Berenice Fleming, who was away in a New York boarding-school, the other a boy, Rolfe Carter, who was in a military school for boys somewhere in the West.
“That daughter of hers,” observed the Colonel, “is a chip of the old block, unless I miss my guess. I only saw her two or three times a few years ago when I was down East at her mother’s summer home; but she struck me as having great charm even for a girl of ten. She’s a lady born, if ever there was one. How her mother is to keep her straight, living as she does, is more than I know. How she keeps her in that school is a mystery. There’s apt to be a scandal here at any time. I’m very sure the girl doesn’t know anything about her mother’s business. She never lets her come out here.”
“Berenice Fleming,” Cowperwood thought to himself. “What a pleasing name, and what a peculiar handicap in life.”
“How old is the daughter now?” he inquired.
“Oh, she must be about fifteen—not more than that.”