“Not quite,” said Lucille with a cold smile. “You must be a bad man of business, and yet you have realized a fortune.”
“Yes, I have made my pile, madame,” he returned, with a vague feeling of uneasiness, “and as to my being a man of business, why you just ask anyone who knows me.”
“There is no necessity,” said Lucille, “because I can test you myself. As a man of business, how much do you intend to pay me to go away?”
The colonel indulged in a low whistle, and for a moment regarded with absolute admiration the woman he had for a time believed to be his wife. Then he slowly produced his pocket-book, and taking out some notes, placed them before her. She took them up and reckoned the amount. “Not bad for a first bid,” she observed, “and I see you know how to deal. You are a better man of business than I imagined. Say double, and we will call it done.”
Again the Senator produced his pocket-book, and once more extracted from its recesses some notes. He placed these before Lucille, and she took them up as before. Once again she arrived at a total.
“You are satisfied I shall not disturb you,” she asked. “You can trust me?”
“Well, yes, madame, I can,” replied the colonel. “You think quite rightly that I don’t want a scandal. I don’t. But if there is to be one, we may as well have it on a grand scale. If you come back, madame, to annoy me, why then I shall know that I may as well go in for the entire cucumber, and act accordingly.”
“You will shoot me?”
“I guess it will come to that. You are a woman of great discrimination. I shall remove you, and I can do it with a better grace after you have been away a bit. So you know what to expect. And now, as we have had this friendly chat, there is no reason why we should quarrel. Loo-cill, here’s my hand.”
She burst into a bitter laugh.