“She’ll never marry him with my consent!” stormed her Uncle Jim. “Nor with Miles’s! The fellow’s an unscrupulous scoundrel! He’s made of cruelty from his toes to his hair! He stops at nothing! He even robbed Market Square Church of six million dollars!”
Gail’s head suddenly went up in startled inquiry. She wanted to still defend Allison; but she dreaded what was to come.
“We wouldn’t sell him Vedder Court at his price; so he took it from us at six million less than he originally offered. He did that by a trick, too.”
All three women looked up at him in breathless interest.
“He had the city condemn Vedder Court,” went on Sargent. “If he had condemned it outright for the Municipal Transportation Company, he would have had to pay us about the amount of his original offer; but his own private and particular devil put the idea into his head that the Vedder Court tenements should be torn down anyhow, for the good of the public! So he had the buildings condemned first, destroying six million dollars’ worth of value; then he had the ground condemned! Tim Corman probably got about a million dollars for that humanitarian job!”
Allison swept Gail into his arms, and rained hot kisses upon her, crushing her closely to him. She offered no resistance, and the very fact that she held so supinely in his arms, made Allison release her sooner than he might otherwise have done. She had known that this experience must come, that no look or gesture or word of hers could ward it off.
“You must never do that again,” she told him, stepping back from him, and regaining her breath with an effort. She had lingered in the front parlours to receive him before her Uncle Jim should know that he was in the house, and she had led him straight into the little tête-à-tête reception room. She meant to free herself quickly.
“Why not?” he laughed, and advanced toward her, taking her attitude lightly, ascribing her action to a girlish whim, confident in his power over her. He meant to dispose of her coyness by taking her in his arms again. She belonged to him.
“Mr. Allison.” The tone was cold enough, and deadly in earnest enough to arrest him.
“What’s the matter, Gail?” he protested, ready to humour her, to listen to what she had to say, to smooth matters out.