“I know nothin’ of the sort. Even if I did, I s’pose I’d have it to do just the same. But it won’t. I’m too well off to go to jail; or to have folks say: ‘Get out!’ when I say ‘Let me in!’ There’ll be a sight of talk in the papers an’ all through the State. But folks get tired talkin’, after awhile. An’ _I_ never get tired _risin’_. So I’ll win out. When I flash on ’em that merger of the Up-State R. R. with my C. G. & X., they’ll see I’m too big a man to be sat on. That’s comin’ off next week, by the way. An’ bigger schemes to foller. Oh, folks won’t be sore on me long! So you see it ain’t such a great stunt of heroism I’m doin’ for the little girl after all. Now you’d better start. For we--” “But Miss Shevlin? She will read what the papers are bound to say of you. She will hear what her friends--” “Yes,” ruefully admitted the Fighter, “She will. I’ll have to take my chances on that. If she drops me, why it’s better’n if s’ciety dropped _her_. Better for ev’rybody concerned. Unless maybe for _me_. How’s Miss Standish?” “Quite well, thank you. She--” “I’ve been meanin’ to come ’round and pay that dinner call. But I’ve been pretty busy. An’ Dey says there’s no great hurry.” “Just now,” answered Caine, remembering Letty’s moist appeal, “The Standish household is a little upset. I’d call sometime later, if I were you. They will understand. Clive Standish is down with mumps, poor little chap.” “There’s only two kind of kids,” philosophized Conover, “Bad ones and sick ones. But I ain’t afraid of catchin’ anything. I’ll be ’round there in a day or two, tell her.” “By the way,” remarked Caine, to change the subject he found vaguely distasteful, “Miss Shevlin tells me she has been invited to spend the summer at the Hawardens’ cottage at the Antlers.” “Yes,” returned Caleb, drily, “Kind of Mrs. Hawarden, wasn’t it? Dey’s as pleased as a small boy with a revolver. She’s been crazy to go to the Adirondacks. I never knew she wanted to till last week, or--” “And Mrs. Hawarden providentially invited her the next day?” put in Caine, his mouth-corners twitching. “That’s right,” assented Caleb, “I guess some big-hearted philanthrofist just took such a fancy to Mrs. Hawarden as to pay the whole fam’ly’s board bill there for the season;--on condition she asked Dey. But keep that to yourself; for maybe it’s just a wrong guess. An’ I wouldn’t have Dey know it for a thousand dollars. Now go an’ send that reporter here.” “I wonder,” mused Caine, as he departed on his queer mission, “what Caleb Conover would be if all the rest of the world were like Desirée Shevlin. It’s more interesting, though,” he added, “to conjecture what he would be like _without_ Desirée Shevlin. Where would he stop, if she were out of his life?” CHAPTER XVI DESIRÉE MAKES PLANS