"How?"
"--Or shoot you up. She's some schutzen-fest, you know, when she
turns loose----"
"Ah, I tell you she wants the divorce. Abe Grittlefeld's crazy about
her. He'll get Abe Gordon to star her on Broadway; and that's enough
for her. Besides, she'll marry Maxy Venem when she can afford to keep
him."
"You never understood Minna Minti."
"Well, who ever understood any German?" demanded Brandes. "She's one
of those sour-blooded, silent Dutch women that make me ache."
Doc pushed the self-starter; there came a click, a low humming.
Brandes' face cleared and he held out his square-shaped hand: "You fellows," he said, "have put me right with the old folks here.
I'll do the same for you some day. Don't talk about this little girl
and me, that's all."
"All the same," repeated Doc, "don't take any chances with Minna.
She's on to you, and she's got a rotten Dutch disposition."
"That's right, Doc. And say, Harman,"--to Quint--"tell Ben he's doing
fine. Tell him to send me what's mine, because I'll want it very soon
now. I'm going to take a month off and then I'm going to show Stein
how a theatre can be run."
"Eddie," said Quint, "it's a good thing to think big, but it's a damn
poor thing to talk big. Cut out the talk and you'll be a big man some
day."
The graceful car moved forward into the moonlight; his two friends
waved an airy adieu; and Brandes went slowly back to the dark verandah
where sat a young girl, pitifully immature in mind and body--and two
old people little less innocent for all their experience in the ranks
of Christ, for all the wounds that scarred them both in the over-sea
service which had broken them forever.
"A very handsome and distinguished gentleman, your friend Dr.
Curfoot," said the Reverend Mr. Carew. "I imagine his practice in New
York is not only fashionable but extensive."
"Both," said Brandes.
"I assume so. He seems to be intimately acquainted with people whose
names for generations have figured prominently in the social columns
of the New York press."
"Oh, yes, Curfoot and Quint know them all."
Which was true enough. They had to. One must know people from whom one
accepts promissory notes to liquidate those little affairs peculiar to
the temple of chance. And New York's best furnished the neophytes for
these rites.