“That is right where I'm in the dark,” Floyd answered. “Pole didn't get my new relative to say a thing about her. I would have written to him at length, but Pole advised me to wait till I could see him personally. My uncle seems to be a crusty, despondent, unlucky sort of old fellow, and, as there was a kind of estrangement between him and my father, Pole thinks it would irritate him to have to answer my letters. However, I am going down to Atlanta to call on him next Wednesday.”
“Oh, I see,” said Cynthia. “Speaking of Pole Baker—I suppose you heard of what the White Caps did the other night?”
“Yes, and it pained me deeply,” said Floyd, “for I was the indirect cause of the whole trouble.”
“You?”
“Yes, Pole is this way: It is usually some big trouble or great joy that throws him off his balance, and it was the good news he brought to me that upset him. It was in my own room at the hotel, too, that he found the whiskey. A bottle of it was on my table and he slipped it into his pocket and took it off with him. I never missed it till I heard he was on a spree. His friends are trying to keep his wife from finding out about the White Caps.”
“They needn't trouble further,” Cynthia said, bitterly. “I was over there yesterday. Mrs. Snodgrass had just told her about it, and I thought the poor woman would die. She ordered Mrs. Snodgrass out of the house, telling her never to darken her door again, and she stood on the porch, as white as death, screaming after her at the top of her voice. Mrs. Snodgrass was so frightened that she actually broke into a run.”
“The old hag!” Floyd said, darkly. “I wish the same gang would take her out some night and tie her tongue at least.”
“Mrs. Baker came back to me then,” Cynthia went on. “She put her head in my lap and sobbed as if her heart would break. Nothing I could possibly say would comfort her. She worships the ground Pole walks on. And she ought to love him. He's good and noble and full of tenderness. She saw him coming while we were talking, and quickly dried her eyes.
“'He mustn't see me crying,' she said. 'If he thought I knew this he would never get over it.'
“He came in then and noticed her red eyes, and I saw him turn pale as he sat studying her face. Then to throw him off she told him a fib. She told him I'd been taking her into my confidence about something which she was not at liberty to reveal.”