"We're talking of the present, my good man," Deede Dawson said
impatiently. "If you want the girl you must win her. It can be
done, but it won't be easy."
"Tell me how," said Dunn.
"Oh, that's going too fast and too far," answered the other with
his mirthless laugh. "Now, there's Mr. John Clive--what about
him?"
"I'll answer for him," replied Dunn slowly and thickly. "I've put
better men than John Clive out of my way before today."
"That's the way to talk," cried Deede Dawson. "Dunn, dare you play
a big game for big stakes?"
"Try me," said Dunn.
"If I showed you," Deede Dawson's voice sank to a whisper, "if I
showed you a pretty girl for a wife--a fortune to win--what would
you say?"
"Try me," said Dunn again, and then, making his voice as low and
hoarse as was Dunn's, he asked:
"Is it Clive?"
"Later--perhaps," answered Deede Dawson. "There's some one else
--first. Are you ready?"
"Try me," said Dunn for the third time, and as he spoke his quick
ear caught the faint sound of a retreating footstep, and he told
himself that Ella must have lingered near and had perhaps heard all
they said.
"Try me," he said once more, speaking more loudly and clearly this
time.
CHAPTER XIV
LOVE-MAKING AT NIGHT
Dunn went to his room that night with the feeling that a crisis was
approaching. And he wished very greatly that he knew how much Ella
had overheard of his talk with her stepfather, and what
interpretation she had put upon it.
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