Page:Jackson Gregory--joyous trouble maker.djvu/200

184 "Don't you care, Trixie," he said over the telephone. And, when she cut him short there, clicking up her receiver, he was unruffled and wrote:

Which, the first step in the love making of Bill Steele, came perilously close to driving her into Joe Embry's eager arms. It did drive her to call upon Embry again, to plan with him the final breaking of the presumptuous and utterly detestable Bill Steele.

"In an ordinary affair of business, Miss Corliss," said Embry thoughtfully, scoring with her more than he knew by making no reference to his proposal of a few days ago, "I know that you are as capable as I am, and in perfect sincerity I believe you are considerably more capable. You have had the training, your fortune is bigger than mine, you have inherited the ability of Ben Corliss. But this is no ordinary business affair, very largely for the reason that Steele is in no particular a business man. Also his methods, as I know better than you, are questionable. If you care to put fifty thousand dollars into my hands I will put with it a similar amount of my own and not only break him and drive him out but make good on our investment."

To Beatrice Corliss that morning fifty thousand dollars or a hundred thousand constituted a small matter provided they inflicted upon Steele the defeat she so devoutly wished him. Furthermore, she trusted Embry. She would, largely as a matter of form, take his note