d. He wanted to laugh, too,
bitterly. Did they think he was that innocent!

"That's your affair," he repeated. "I fight winner take all."

There are some who insist that Pig-iron Dunham was not without a
virtue. His next words seem to prove it.

"Better take your five thousand," he suggested good-naturedly. "It's
better than nothing. Holliday could double-cross us."

That cool!

"Winner take all," droned Perry.

"Winner take all!" Dunham snapped.

And that afternoon they signed articles, Hamilton acting for Blair.

The same night Perry told Felicity what he had done.

"So I--I'll either have twenty thousand dollars in a month or so," he
made bad work of it, "or I'll know that I'm never likely to have it.
If you--if you'll wait . . . I'm glad you like the country. I've
always wanted a ranch."

Felicity was needlessly callous, either because it made her despise
herself a little for the part she had played, or because she was just
Felicity. Surely she was more brutal than she need have been.

For she sat, chin propped upon one hand, and stared derisively into the
boy's self-conscious eyes.

"You poor hick!" she said deliberately. "You poor cross-roads hick!
Twenty thousand dollars? Why, that's chicken-feed compared with my
price."

In one way it was merciful. It was quickly over. Perry's
self-consciousness passed. Calm as she had been impudent he surveyed
her. Once his lip twitched; he half-opened his mouth as if to speak,
and then thought better of it. He'd talk to no woman like that. He
left her without a word.

And she sat biting her lip a little while, till Dunham came to the
table.

"Honey--" he began.

"Don't honey me!" The words lashed back at him. "I'm sick of
honeying. Talk cash!"

And Dunham was sick of temporizing.

He talked.

So when Cecille came in the next day, Saturday, at noon, and found
Felicity with her bag packed, few words were necessary. She knew the
moment had come.

CHAPTER X

CECILLE PLAYS THE GAME

Cecille had tried often to imagine what that moment was going to be like.

More than once she had dreaded that it would find her cheaply dramatic;
that nervous sentiment would surprise her and break her down. Now she
met it, unconcerned, without the slightest sense of shock. She had never
doubted that Felicity would be anything but matter-of-fact and jaunty,
right up to the end. Now it was the other girl who displayed unexpected
feeling.