Читать книгу The Running Fight онлайн

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Flomerfelt bent over her.

"It's a bargain," he announced. "We'll seal it with a kiss."

"Why, Mr. Flomerfelt, I never have kissed anybody except Peter V.," she simpered, blushing all the while.

"I couldn't help it," he told her on leaving, and passing through the door, closed it gently behind him. On the second landing he stopped and thought a while. "Not a bad scheme, that scheme of hers," he mused to himself. "She doesn't altogether realise that if the time ever comes when we fight Wilkinson, she and I, that we will be fighting a man still worth a hundred million dollars. At any rate," he concluded, "my game is first to fight for Wilkinson, and then—against him."

Meanwhile, in her boudoir, the lady had hastened to the mirror to contemplate her fairness.

"He's not such a bad chap, after all, that Flomerfelt," she acknowledged to herself.

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Peter V. Wilkinson in the Den below was having a bad quarter of an hour with his daughter Leslie. For, truth to tell, there was no person in the universe whose judgment he dreaded more than the judgment of this girl who sat before him: it was his one passion to appear well in her eyes. He had listened, with keen interest, to what she had to say, invariably seeking her glance, at times leaning forward with unusual intentness in order not to lose a single word. Time and time again her words, unintentionally it is true, stung him to the quick. And yet, he had not even gulped down his emotion. He had faced her, quiet, calculating, with a countenance at times interested, at times amused. Not once had he interrupted her; not once apologised. At the start he had wondered just what he should say when she had finished, had thought of denials, of indignation, of calling on the absent accuser for his proofs; but as her tale unfolded, he merely continued to chew the black, unlighted cigar that he held in his mouth.