"Nonsense, girl," said Wilkinson, pulling himself together, "I'll get clear all right."
"When you do," she declared with a faint smile, "and if he then asks me, I'll take him. If he does not...." A sigh of misery escaped her.
"You're a little fool! Confound it, Leslie, this thing was all cut and——" He checked himself suddenly, remembering his promise to the Colonel.
"Cut and dried," she echoed in surprise.
"Yes, this National Bank conspiracy," he mumbled in confusion, "the courts here in the city are backing them up. But up there in Albany, I'll get free, you'll see." And now with a sudden change of manner, he continued: "Look here, Leslie, I've got reasons, too—reasons a darned sight better than yours, why I want you to marry Eliot Beekman. Never mind what they are. The fact is, I want you to be settled—I want it all fixed.... I give you my word—the Colonel will give you his word that I shall get clear. We know it, we've got it fixed.... It's all right—there can't be a slip up. And now, besides my freedom, which I'm going to get, there's only one thing in the world that I want, and that is that you marry Eliot Beekman. Good heavens, girl, can't you see—don't you see that this thing is vital to me? I'm no woman, and I don't speak at random. You've got to marry Eliot Beekman; if you don't——"
"But I can't," she returned simply; and from this decision there seemed no appeal. "I can't accept him now, father."
Leslie rose and made a movement to go. But Wilkinson, feeling as though the hangman's noose was already settling about his neck, snatched up the receiver on his desk with one hand, while with the other he made an authoritative gesture for the girl to resume her seat.
"Is Mr. Flomerfelt in the house?" he called through the instrument.
A look of pained surprise and annoyance at once crossed Leslie's face. Heedless of it Wilkinson spoke again.
"In the library, you say? Give me that room and be quick about it."