“And I shall tell you something else,” she went on. “During all the time he sat behind you, when you were talking, I watched him, he was pretending to sleep, for at times he opened his eyes and looked at you, and I am sure he was not thinking pleasant thoughts. And I don’t believe he is a clodhopper. I think he amounts to something; and if you will look well at him you will see, too. When he was listening to you there was a look in his eyes that made me think of fighting.” And then, after a momentary pause, she added slowly, “there isn’t anything wrong about the business you are going to transact out here—is there?” “Wrong?” he laughed. “Oh, no! Business is business.” He leaned forward and gazed deliberately into her eyes, his own glowing significantly. “You don’t think, with me holding your good opinion—and always hoping to better it—that I would do anything to destroy it, Marion?” The girl’s cheeks were suffused with faint color. “You are assuming again, Mr. James J. Carrington. I don’t care for your subtle speeches. I like you best when you talk frankly; but I am not sure that I shall ever like you enough to marry you.” She smiled at the scowl in his eyes, then looked speculatively at him. It should have been apparent to him that she had spoken the truth regarding her feeling for him. The uncle knew she had spoken the truth, for she left them presently, and the car door had hardly closed behind her when Carrington said, smiling grimly: “She’s a thoroughbred, Parsons. That’s why I like her. I’ll have her, too!” “Careful,” grinned the other, smoothly. “If she ever discovers what a brute you are—” He made a gesture of finality. “Brute! Bah! Parsons, you make me sick! I’ll take her when I want her! Why do you suppose I told her that fairy tale about her father having been seen in this locality? To get her out here with me, of course—where there isn’t a hell of a lot of law, and a man’s will is the only thing that governs him. She won’t have me, eh? Well, we’ll see!” Parsons smirked at the other. “Then you lied about Lawrence Harlan having been seen in this country?” “Sure,” admitted Carrington. “Why not?” Parsons looked leeringly at Carrington. “Suppose I should tell her?” Carrington glared at the older man. “You won’t,” he declared. “In the first place, you don’t love her as an uncle should because she looks like Larry Harlan—and you hated Larry. Suppose I should tell her that you were the cause of the trouble between her parents; that you framed up on her mother, to get her to leave Larry? Why, you damned, two-faced gopher, she’d wither you!” He grinned at the other and got up, turning, when he reached his feet, to see Quinton Taylor, standing beside a chair at the next table, just ready to sit down, but delaying to hear the remainder of the extraordinary conversation carried on between the two men.