“You’re gambling for a big stake then,” Monty said seriously. “Is it worth it, old man?”
For a moment he had an idea of offering him a position in some of the great corporations in which his father was interested, but refrained. Steven Denby was not the kind of man to brook anything that smacked of patronage and he feared his offer might do that although otherwise meant.
“It means a whole lot more to me than you can think,” Denby returned. “I have made up my mind to do it and I think I can get away with it in just the way I have mapped out.” Then, with a smile: “Monty, I’ve a proper respect for your imaginative genius, but I’d bet you the necklace to the tobacco-pouch that you don’t understand how much I want to get that string of pearls through the customs.”
“The pouch is yours,” Monty conceded generously. “How should I guess? How do I know who’s a smuggler or who isn’t? Alice says she always gets something through and for all I know may have a ruby taken from the eye of a Hindoo god in her back hair!”
He looked at his friend eagerly, a new thought striking him. He often surprised himself in romantic ideas, ideas for which Nora was responsible.
“Perhaps you are taking it for someone, someone you’re fond of,” he suggested.
“Why not?” Denby returned. “If I were really fond of any woman I’d risk more than that to please her.”
Monty noticed that he banished the subject by speaking of Alice Harrington’s penchant for smuggling.
“I hope Mrs. Harrington won’t run any risks,” he said. “In her case it is absolutely senseless and unnecessary.”
“Oh, they’d never get after her,” Monty declared. “She’s too big. They get after the little fellows but they’d leave Mrs. Michael Harrington alone.”