Part 19 (1/2)

It may be dangerous.”

She smiled.

”I think I can convince Jerry Gardner of anything I choose to tell him,” she said. ”Besides, it is absolutely necessary that I have some information about Wenham's affairs. He must have a great deal more money somewhere and I must find out how we are to get at it.”

The professor shook his head.

”I don't like it,” he muttered. ”Supposing he finds Beatrice!”

Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders.

”Beatrice is made of silent stuff,” she declared. ”I should never be afraid of her. All the same, I wish I could find out just where she is.

It would look better if we were living together.”

The professor shook his head sadly.

”She left us of her own free will,” he said, ”and I don't believe, Elizabeth, that she would ever come back again. She knew very well what she was doing. She knew that our views of life were not hers. She didn't know half but she knew enough. You were quite right in what you said just now; Beatrice was more like her mother, and her mother was a good woman.”

”Really!” Elizabeth remarked, insolently.

”Don't answer like that,” he bl.u.s.tered, striking the table. ”She was your mother, too.”

The woman's face was inscrutable, hard, and flawless behind the little cloud of tobacco smoke. The man began to tremble once more. Every time he ventured to a.s.sert himself, a single look from her was sufficient to quell him.

”Elizabeth,” he muttered, ”you haven't a heart, you haven't a soul, you haven't a conscience. I wonder--what sort of a woman you are!”

”I am your daughter,” she reminded him, pleasantly.

”I was never quite so bad as that,” he went on, taking a large silk handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing his forehead. ”I had to live and times were hard. I have cheated the public, perhaps. I haven't been above playing at cards a little cleverly, or making something where I could out of the weaker men. But, Elizabeth, I am afraid of you.”

”Men are generally afraid of the big stakes,” she remarked, flicking the ash from her cigarette. ”They will cheat and lie for halfpennies, but they are bad gamblers when life or death--the big things are in the balance. Bah!” she went on. ”Father, I want Jerry Gardner to come and see me.”

”If you can't make him come, my dear,” the professor said, ”I am sure it will be of no use my trying.”

”He has had my letter,” she continued, half to herself; ”he has had my letter and he does not come.”

”There is nothing to be done but wait,” her father decided.

”And meanwhile,” she went on, ”supposing he were to discover Beatrice, supposing they two were to come together; supposing he were to tell her what he knows and she were to tell him what she guessed!”

The professor buried his face in his hands. Elizabeth threw her cigarette away with an impatient gesture.

”What an idiot I am!” she declared. ”What is the use of wasting time like this?”

There was a knock at the door. A trim-looking French maid presented herself. She addressed her mistress in voluble French. A coiffeur and a manicurist were waiting in the next apartment; it was time that Madame habited herself. The professor listened to these announcements with an air of half-admiring wonder.

”I suppose I must be going,” he said, rising to his feet. ”There is just one thing I should like to ask you, Elizabeth, if I may, before I go.”