"I don't want Edith to hear me," he said. "He's a friend of hers. But he's a bad actor, son. He's wrong with women, for one thing, and when I think that all he's got to oppose him is Howard Cardew--" Mr. Hendricks got up, and took a nervous turn about the room.
"Maybe you know that Cardew has a daughter?"
"Yes."
"Well, I hear a good many things, one way and another, and my wife likes a bit of gossip. She knows them both by sight, and she ran into them one day in the tea room of the Saint Elmo, sitting in a corner, and the girl had her back to the room. I don't like the look of that, Cameron."
Willy Cameron got up and closed the window. He stood there, with his back to the light, for a full minute. Then: "I think there must be some mistake about that, Mr. Hendricks. I have met her. She isn't the sort of girl who would do clandestine things."
Mr. Hendricks looked up quickly. He had made it his business to study men, and there was something in Willy Cameron's voice that caught his attention, and turned his shrewd mind to speculation.
"Maybe," he conceded. "Of course, anything a Cardew does is likely to be magnified in this town. If she's as keen as the men in her family, she'll get wise to him pretty soon." Willy Cameron came back then, but Mr. Hendricks kept his eyes on the tip of his cigar.
"We've got to lick Cardew," he said, "but I'm cursed if I want to do it with Akers."
When there was no comment, he looked up. Yes, the boy had had a blow. Mr. Hendricks was sorry. If that was the way the wind blew it was hopeless. It was more than that; it was tragic.
"Sorry I said anything, Cameron. Didn't know you knew her."
"That's all right. Of course I don't like to think she is being talked about."
"The Cardews are always being talked about. You couldn't drop her a hint, I suppose?"
"She knows what I think about Louis Akers."
He made a violent effort and pulled himself together. "So it is Akers and Howard Cardew, and one's a knave and one's a poor bet."
"Right," said Mr. Hendricks. "And one's Bolshevist, if I know anything, and the other is capital, and has about as much chance as a rich man to get through the eye of a needle."