Madvig put his fists on his hips and exclaimed softly and incredulously: “Well, I’ll be damned!”
Ned Beaumont walked past Madvig and with unsteady thin fingers mashed the burning end of his cigar in the hammered copper basin on the table.
Madvig stared at the younger man’s back until he straightened and turned. Then the blond man grinned at him with affection and exasperation. “What gets into you, Ned?” he complained. “You go along fine for just so long and then for no reason at all you throw an ing-bing. I’ll be a dirty so-and-so if I can make you out!”
Ned Beaumont made a grimace of distaste. He said, “All right, forget it,” and immediately returned to the attack with a skeptical question: “Do you think he’ll play ball with you after he’s re-elected?”
Madvig was not worried. “I can handle him.”
“Maybe, but don’t forget he’s never been licked at anything in his life.”
Madvig nodded in complete agreement. “Sure, and that’s one of the best reasons I know for throwing in with him.”
“No, it isn’t, Paul,” Ned Beaumont said earnestly. “It’s the very worst. Think that over even if it hurts your head. How far has this dizzy blonde daughter of his got her hooks into you?”
Madvig said: “I’m going to marry Miss Henry.”
Ned Beaumont made a whistling mouth, though he did not whistle. He made his eyes smaller and asked: “Is that part of the bargain?”
Madvig grinned boyishly. “Nobody knows it yet,” he replied, “except you and me.”
Spots of color appeared in Ned Beaumont’s lean cheeks. He smiled his nicest smile and said: “You can trust me not to go around bragging about it and here’s a piece of advice. If that’s what you want, make them put it in writing and swear to it before a notary and post a cash bond, or, better still, insist on the wedding before election-day. Then you’ll at least be sure of your pound of flesh, or she’ll weigh around a hundred and ten, won’t she?”
Madvig shifted his feet. He avoided Ned Beaumont’s gaze while saying: “I don’t know why you keep talking about the Senator like he was a yegg. He’s a gentleman and–”
“Absolutely. Read about it in the Post–one of the few aristocrats left in American politics. And his daughter’s an aristocrat. That’s why I’m warning you to sew your shirt on when you go to see them, or you’ll come away without it, because to them you’re a lower form of animal life and none of the rules apply.”
Madvig sighed and began: “Aw, Ned, don’t be so damned–”
But Ned Beaumont had remembered something. His eyes were shiny with malice. He said: “And we oughtn’t to forget that young Taylor Henry’s an aristocrat too, which is probably why you made Opal stop playing around with him. How’s that going to work out when you marry his sister and he’s your daughter’s uncle-in-law or something? Will that entitle him to begin playing around with her again?”
Madvig yawned. “You didn’t understand me right, Ned,” he said. “I didn’t ask for all this. I just asked you what kind of present I ought to’ give Miss Henry.”
Ned Beaumont’s face lost its animation, became a slightly sullen mask. “How far have you got with her?” he asked in a voice that expressed nothing of what he might have been thinking.
“Nowhere. I’ve been there maybe half a dozen times to talk to the Senator. Sometimes I see her and sometimes I don’t, but only to say ‘How do you do’ or something with other people around. You know, I haven’t had a chance to say anything to her yet.”
Amusement glinted for a moment in Ned Beaumont’s eyes and vanished. He brushed back one side of his mustache with a thumb-nail and asked: “Tomorrow’s your first dinner there?”
“Yes, though I don’t expect it to be the last.”
“And you didn’t get a bid to the birthday party?”
“No.” Madvig hesitated. “Not yet.”
“Then the answer’s one you won’t like.”
Madvig’s face was impassive. “Such as?” he asked.
“Don’t give her anything.”
“Oh, hell, Ned!”
Ned Beaumont shrugged. “Do whatever you like. You asked me.”