Part 82

Ah, Etienne told himself, the law sometimes sent queer emissaries to probe for it--and he feared the law very much.

He must be very careful how he told any of the secrets which might trouble his good friend, who was now such a friend of the mighty folks; as for himself--well, he would willingly be a martyr if the law demanded--but he did fear that law!

“But he loved the child very much,” she hinted.

“So much that he will fight them because they have poisoned her--he will fight them and not be scare.”

“It is strange!” she repeated.

“Oui, ma'm'selle,” he said, regarding her with still more suspicion.

“But before that morning--when you found them here under the tree! He told you--”

“He walk the street with her in his arm. I don't tell you some more about dat t'ing what I do not know!”

But she knew that he was withholding something from her. She mustered her courage.

“Mr. Provancher, the bad men are making threats that they will print stories about the child--and its mamma--to hurt your friend. And the stories will make the mamma very sad.”

“No stories can make her sad,” said old Etienne, solemnly. But he did not say that he had raked the mother from the canal. The law must not know!

“But I have heard about her,” she insisted.

The old man's mouth trembled; he was frightened. “What you hear?” he faltered.

“Only good things. That she was very tender and went with you to the grave.”

“Oui,” admitted Etienne, visibly relieved and grasping at this opportunity. “She's sweet and good. She's play-mamma.”

“And her name is Zelie Dionne?” she asked, her face growing white in the dusk.

“Oui, ma'm'selle--she live across in the little house where there are plant in the window--she live with the good Mother Maillet what I told you about.” He pointed to the cottage. “You go some time and talk with her--but not now,” he added, his fears flaming. He was anxious to be the first to talk to Zelie Dionne, in order that she might help him to protect their friend. “You shall talk with her--soon--p'raps. I will tell her so that she will not be afraid. Yes, you shall hear the play-mamma say good things of poor Rosemarie.”

She bowed and hurried away.

And before her tear-wet eyes the words “play-mamma” danced in letters of fire. It seemed to be only another sordid story.

But she remembered the face of Walker Farr, and in her heart she wondered why she still refused to condemn him.

XXVI

THE DRIVEN BARGAIN

The Honorable Daniel Breed, “sipping” his thin lips and propping his coat-tails on his gaunt fingers, patrolled the lobby of the National Hotel and his complacency was not a whit disturbed when Richard Dodd passed in front of him and sneered in his face.

“Keep on practising making up faces,” advised the old man, amiably. “Perhaps in the course of time your uncle will give you a job making up faces as his understudy, seeing that his physog is getting so tough he can't manage it very well these days.”

Young Dodd whirled on his heel and returned. “We've got a line on you and your amateur angels, Breed.”

“Don't consider me an amateur, do you?” asked the old politician, smacking his lips complacently.

“You're a has-been.”

“Sure thing!” agreed Mr. Breed. “The state committee told me so, and the state committee never made a mistake.”