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 blustered, 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 assert 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.
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