. She paused after accentuating her last words. Jacky, taking
advantage of the break, dropped in a question.

"But--how does this affect my uncle?"

"Aunt" Margaret sniffed disdainfully and resettled the glasses which, in
the agitation of the moment, had slipped from her nose.

"Of course it affects your uncle," she continued more quietly. "Now
listen and I will explain." Once more these two seated themselves and
"Aunt" Margaret again plunged into her story.

"Sometimes I catch myself speculating as to how it comes about that you
have inspired this passion in such a man as Lablache," she began,
glancing into the somberly beautiful face beside her. "I should have
expected that mass of flesh and money--he always reminds me of a
jelly-fish, my dear--ugh!--to have wished to take to himself one of your
gaudy butterflies from New York or London for a wife; not a simple child
of the prairie who is more than half a wild--wild savage." She smiled
lovingly into the girl's face. "You see these coarse money-grubbers
always prefer their pills well gilded, and, as a rule, their matrimonial
pills need a lot of gilding to bring them up to the standard of what
they think a wife should be. However, it was not long before it became
plain to me that he wished to marry you. He may be a master of finance;
he may disguise his feelings--if he has any--in business, so that the
shrewdest observer can discover no vulnerable point in his armor of
dissimulation. But when it comes to matters pertaining
to--to--love--quite the wrong word in his case, my dear--these men are
as babes; worse, they are fools. When Lablache makes up his mind to a
purpose he generally accomplishes his end--"

"In business," suggested Jacky, moodily.

"Just so--in business, my dear. In matters matrimonial it may be
different. But I doubt his failure in that," went on Mrs. Abbot, with a
decided snap of her expressive mouth. "He will try by fair means or
foul, and, if I know anything of him, he will never relinquish his
purpose. He asked you to marry him--and of course you refused, quite
natural and right. He will not risk another refusal from you--these
people consider themselves very sensitive, my dear--so he will attempt
to accomplish his end by other means--means much more congenial to him,
the--the beast. There now, I've said it, my dear. The doctor tells me
that he is quite the most skilful player at poker that he has ever come
across."

"I guess that's so," sai