“It won't be poachin' if I have a bet, then?” asked the Cherub, more solicitous than he had appeared at an earlier stage of the game.
“Poachers don't worry me,” remarked Diablo's owner. “I'm my own game keeper, and they usually get the worst of it. But you go ahead and have your bet.”
“Thank you, there won't be no more bad breaks made by me; but I didn't mean to give you none the worst of it. Good day, sir,” and he was gone.
“Faust has had his lesson,” thought Crane, as he took from a drawer the stable-boy's ill-favored note.
“I wonder who sent me this scrawl? It gave me a pointer, though. I suppose the writer will turn up for his reward; but the devil of it is he'll sell information of this sort to anyone who'll buy. Must weed him out when I've discovered the imp. At any rate Faust will go straight, now he's been scorched. I'll just re-enter that bet to the Little Woman while I think of it. 'Three thousand seven hundred and fifty to fifty, Diablo for the Brooklyn, laid to Miss Allis Porter.'” Then he dated it. “She loses by this transaction, but that won't matter; it will be a pretty good win if it comes off. She may even refuse this, though she shouldn't, for it's a part of the bargain that I was to have a bet on for her, a small bet, of course. Yes, yes; I remember, a small bet. But this is a small bet. There was nothing said about the size of the winnings. She was probably thinking of gloves. Jingo, she has a lovely hand, I've noticed it; long slim fingers, even the palm is long; sinewy I'll warrant; nothing pudgy about that hand. Hey, Crane, you're silly!” he cried, half audibly, taking himself to task; “doing business in big moneys—a cool seventy-five thousand, if it materializes, perhaps even more—and then slipping off into a mooney dream, vaporing about a girl's slim hand. I suppose that's the love symptom. But at forty! it's hardly my normal condition, I fancy.”
The slim hand beckoned him off into a disjointed reverie. Was he the better for it? What would the end be? Before the new emotion he could look back upon his past struggles with sordid satisfaction. Men in battle were not given to uneasy qualms of compunction, nor questionings as to the method that had led to victory. His life had been one long-drawn-out battle; the financial soldiers that had fallen by the wayside because of his sword play did not interest him; they were dead; being dead, their memory harrassed him not at all. If there were commercial blood stains upon his hand, they were hidden by the glove of success. After a manner he had had peace; now all was disquiet; the turmoil of an awakened gentler feeling clashing with the polemics of self-satisfying selfishness. And all because of a girl! To him that was the peculiar feature of the disturbance in his nature. He, Philip Crane, the strong man of strong men, to be shorn of his indifference to everything but success by a girl unskilled in managing anything but a horse.
“It's all very fine to argue it out with one's self,” he thought, “but I simply can't help it.” He was astonished to find that he was pacing up and down the floor of his apartment. Undoubtedly he was possessed of a tremendous regard for the girl Allis. But why not put it from him; why not conquer himself as he had always done? To let it master him meant the giving up of things that were almost second nature. He could not love the girl as a good woman should be loved, and—and—well, the gray eyes that had their strength because of supreme honesty would surely bring him disquietude. It would indeed be difficult to change his nature much; his habits were almost like leopard's spots; they were grown into the woof of his existence. Even if he won her it must be almost entirely because of a superior diplomacy. Everything told him that his love was not returned. It seemed almost impossible that it should be; there was not more disparity in their years than in their two selves. “All very fine again,” he muttered, somewhat savagely; “I want her, I want her, not because of anything but love. What she is, or what I am counts for nothing; love is all compelling; my first master, I salute thee,” this in sarcastic sincerity.
In his strength he relied upon his power to bring forth an answering love, at least regard, should he win Allis. Yes, it would surely come. He had not even a young rival to combat. Yes, he would win, first Allis, and afterward her love.
“I'm quite silly,” he ejaculated; “but I can't help it. But I can go out and get some fresh air, and I will.”