“The bank, of course, made instant restitution to Jessup. I ordered the matter kept in strict confidence. I haven’t proved it against Beau, but I know now 1 could, by asking certain people the right questions in the right way.”
“Meaning a certain big-shot bookie?”
“How right! I could readily, through Netta—I see a good deal of her, one way or another—she’s one of a number of social bootlickers who see to it they stay in my good graces—
I could easily have a talk with her. I could ask her to get a note from Beau admitting the defalcation. I could then arrange to recover the bonds—he must have borrowed cash on them somewhere in Green Prairie or River City—and that, also, could be learned. Netta could and would see to it, afterward, that any little wish of mine, or yours, was met, Kit.”
“Very nice little shotgun wedding—with both barrels pointed not at the groom, but the bride’s papa.”
“I said, Kit, that I wanted to know how you felt about Lenore. And then I wanted you to act —not fiddle years away.”
It was all there, he thought, laid on the table, on the damask, right in front of the centerpiece, the bowl of flowers. His last ideas concerning demurrer came to him, and were unvoiced. He did not mention the early background of Netta Bailey. He did not need to. The Sloan name would compensate, socially, for nearly any background stain. And, suddenly, a brand-new vision had come into his mind. He could see himself married to Lenore, no longer engaged in a struggle with her, but holding a lifelong whip over her. If they married because she had to, because she’d done it to save her father from prison, probably she’d go on saving him all her life. Kit could come and go as he pleased, do as he pleased, be as free as he pleased, and she’d have to take it because of a Signed confession his mother had somewhere.
This opportunity, to become a husband and remain what he thought of as a “man,”
appealed to him greatly. Lenore, he had intuitively known, was emotionally far stronger than he.
She would have managed him and bossed him. Now, it would be another kettle of fish. He was aware that Minerva had gone through the same thought process, come to the same conclusion and was prepared to explain it if necessary.