The Landloper Part 49

The old man's mouth trembled; he was frightened. "What you hear?" he faltered.

"Only good things. That she was very tender and went with you to the grave."

"_Oui_," admitted Etienne, visibly relieved and grasping at this opportunity. "She's sweet and good. She's play-mamma."

"And her name is Zelie Dionne?" she asked, her face growing white in the dusk.

"_Oui_, ma'm'selle--she live across in the little house where there are plant in the window--she live with the good Mother Maillet what I told you about." He pointed to the cottage. "You go some time and talk with her--but not now," he added, his fears flaming. He was anxious to be the first to talk to Zelie Dionne, in order that she might help him to protect their friend. "You shall talk with her--soon--p'raps. I will tell her so that she will not be afraid. Yes, you shall hear the play-mamma say good things of poor Rosemarie."

She bowed and hurried away.

And before her tear-wet eyes the words "play-mamma" danced in letters of fire. It seemed to be only another sordid story.

But she remembered the face of Walker Farr, and in her heart she wondered why she still refused to condemn him.

XXVI

THE DRIVEN BARGAIN

The Honorable Daniel Breed, "sipping" his thin lips and propping his coat-tails on his gaunt fingers, patrolled the lobby of the National Hotel and his complacency was not a whit disturbed when Richard Dodd pa.s.sed in front of him and sneered in his face.

"Keep on practising making up faces," advised the old man, amiably.

"Perhaps in the course of time your uncle will give you a job making up faces as his understudy, seeing that his physog is getting so tough he can't manage it very well these days."

Young Dodd whirled on his heel and returned. "We've got a line on you and your amateur angels, Breed."

"Don't consider me an amateur, do you?" asked the old politician, smacking his lips complacently.

"You're a has-been."

"Sure thing!" agreed Mr. Breed. "The state committee told me so, and the state committee never made a mistake."

"We've got so much of a line on your crowd that my uncle has called off the organizers. There's no need of our wasting money in this campaign.

You're that!" He clacked a finger smartly into his palm.

"Oh yes! You're right! Some snap to us."

"I mean you're nothing."

"Run in and take another drink, sonny," advised Breed, giving slow cant of his head to denote the baize door through which Dodd had emerged.

"What you have had up to date seems to be making you optimistic--and there's nothing like being optimistic in politics. I'm always optimistic--but naturally so. Don't need torching!"

"Look here, Breed, we've got enough dope on that ex-hobo who is doing your errand-boy work--we know enough about him to kill your whole sorehead proposition. But I don't believe my uncle will even use it. No need of it."

"Probably not," said Mr. Breed, without resentment. "And I wouldn't if I were he."

"We won't descend to it. Now that we have got rid of a lot of old battle-axes of politicians--and I'm calling no names--we can conduct a campaign with dignity."

"So do! So do! And it will save a lot of trouble, son; that's why the newspapers wouldn't print that stuff about Mr. Farr after your uncle got it ready. Libel cases make a lot of trouble."

Dodd grew red and scowled. "Look here, Breed, you're licked before the start, and as a good politician you know you are. My uncle wants you to drop in and see him. He told me to tell you so. This is no official order, you understand. Just drop in informally, and he'll probably have something interesting to say to you."

"I'm terribly rushed up--shall be till after convention," averred Mr.

Breed, piercing the end of a cigar with a peg he had whittled from a match.

"What's the good of your being a fool any longer?"

"Always have been, so I've found out from that state committee who never told a lie--and it's comfortable to keep on being one," he said, with great serenity.

"You don't think for a minute that you are going to get control of the next legislature, do you?"

"How much money have you got--your own money, I mean?" inquired Mr.

Breed, guilelessly, his eyes centered carefully on the lighted tip of his cigar.

"Say--you--you--What do you mean by that?" rasped Dodd, putting the cracker of a good round oath on the question.

"I meant that I wanted to bet something--and I wouldn't want you to go out and borrow money--or--or--anything else." From the cavernous depths where his eyes were set Mr. Breed turned a slow and solemn stare on the enraged chief clerk of the state treasury.

"What do you want to bet?"

"Any amount in reason that after the first of next January there'll be a fresh deal in the way of state officers in every department in the Capitol. Arguing futures don't get you anywhere, son. If you've got money to back that opinion you just gave me it will express your notions without any more talk. But don't go borrow--or--or anything else."

Dodd stared at the shrewd old political manipulator for a long time.

"You have money to bet, have you?" he asked.

Mr. Breed languidly drew forth a wallet which would make a valise for some men and carelessly displayed a thick packet of bills.

"There it is," he said, "and I earned it myself and so I ain't poking it down any rat-hole without being condemned sure that I'll be able to pull it all back again with just as much more sticking to it. That wouldn't be sooavable--and from what you know of me I'm always sooavable."

Dodd looked at the bills, carefully straightened in their packet, and giving every evidence of having been h.o.a.rded with an old man's caution.

There was something about that money which impressed him with the sincerity of Mr. Breed's belief in his own cause. The young man grew visibly white around the mouth.

"I'll see you later, Breed," he gulped. "I don't believe you know what you are talking about--but I'm not national bank on legs. I'll be around and cover your cash."

He went back into the bar, swallowed a gla.s.s of whisky, and went out and hailed a cab. He directed the driver to carry him to the Trelawny Apartment.

Mrs. Kilgour admitted him to the vestibule of the suite.

"Is Kate at home?" he demanded.

"Yes, Richard!" She shrank away from him, for his aspect was not rea.s.suring. "You know--she has given up her work--she is--"

"I know all about it, Mrs. Kilgour. But I want to ask you whether she has given up her work in order to marry me at once?"