"Well, sir, in some mysterious way that got into the papers and was copied from one end of the country to the other. It had just enough of the dramatic about it to catch people right. The poor old horse going out to the green fields, the man being taught an object lesson. Lamson being so good and generous and kind--it helped him to float a big issue of wildcat mining stock that netted him a couple of millions, and ruined a dozen men outright when it collapsed. So that's the sort of thing we've got to pull off from time to time; you'll be very reticent about it all, when it's called to your attention; you'll be very much displeased that it's got into the papers; you'll have to beg the reporters to excuse you for being unwilling to discuss the matter at all, and it'll be the devil of a good boost for you and any schemes you may be at work on. And you can't deny it, Mr. Gordon, can you?"
Gordon, without at once replying, gazed quizzically at the younger man. "Doyle," he said at last, "I can't for the life of me make up my mind whether if I follow you I'm going to find I'm on the road to fame, or whether I'm only going to succeed in making a most outrageous fool of myself. But on the whole--" he paused deliberately and flicked the ash from his cigar--"on the whole, I believe in you, my boy, and I'm willing to take the chance."
Doyle leaned forward across the table. "Good," he cried, "you won't regret it, Mr. Gordon. With what I know about you, with what I know about myself, with what I know about the general public, the thing's a cinch. You'll be the best advertised man that's walked the earth since the day it was made."
"It ain't nothing to laugh about," said Harrison savagely, "you have changed, every way. You ain't the same girl you was a month ago. You dress different; you act different; you treat me different; and it's gettin' to be more'n I'm goin' to stand for."
Ethel Mason only laughed again in answer. A month had passed since her father's death, an aunt from the lake coming up to the mountain to live with her; but, according to Seneca's gossip, and according to Seneca's general ideas of the fitness of things, this was but a temporary arrangement, to last merely until such time had elapsed as would suit the rough conventions of the county, when Ethel Mason would then become Mrs. Jack Harrison.