Wally was not so easily satisfied.
“You’ve no proof whatever —”
Jill shook her head.
“It’s true, Wally. I know Uncle Chris. It must be true.”
“But, Jill — !”
“It must be. How else could Uncle Chris have got the money?”
Mr Pilkington, much encouraged by this ready acquiescence in his theories, got under way once more.
“The man’s a swindler! A swindler! He’s robbed me! I have been robbed! He never had any intention of starting a motion-picture company. He planned it all out — !”
Jill cut into the babble of his denunciations. She was sick at heart, and she spoke almost listlessly.
“Mr Pilkington!” The victim stopped. “Mr Pilkington, if what you say is true, and I’m afraid there is no doubt that it is, the only thing I can do is to give you back your property. So will you please try to understand that everything is just as it was before you gave my uncle the money. You’ve got back your ten thousand dollars and you’ve got back your piece, so there’s nothing more to talk about.”
Mr Pilkington, dimly realizing that the financial aspect of the affair had been more or less satisfactorily adjusted was nevertheless conscious of a feeling that he was being thwarted. He had much more to say about Uncle Chris and his methods of doing business, and it irked him to be cut short like this.
“Yes, but I do think. — That’s all very well, but I have by no means finished —”
“Yes, you have,” said Wally.
“There’s nothing more to talk about,” repeated Jill. “I’m sorry this should have happened, but you’ve nothing to complain about now, have you? Good night.”
And she turned quickly away, and walked towards the door.
“But I hadn’t finished!” wailed Mr Pilkington, clutching at Wally. He was feeling profoundly aggrieved. If it is bad to be all dressed up and no place to go, it is almost worse to be full of talk and to have no one to talk it to. Otis Pilkington had at least another twenty minutes of speech inside him on the topic of Uncle Chris, and Wally was the nearest human being with a pair of ears.
Wally was in no mood to play the part of confidant. He pushed Mr Pilkington earnestly in the chest and raced after Jill. Mr Pilkington, with the feeling that the world was against him, tottered back into the arms of Mr Goble, who had now recovered his breath and was ready to talk business.
“Have a good cigar,” said Mr Goble, producing one. “Now, see here, let’s get right down to it. If you’d care to sell out for twenty thousand —”
“I would not care to sell out for twenty thousand!” yelled the overwrought Mr Pilkington. “I wouldn’t sell out for a million! You’re a swindler! You want to rob me! You’re a crook!”
“Yes, yes,” assented Mr Goble gently. “But, all joking aside, suppose I was to go up to twenty-five thousand — ?” He twined his fingers lovingly in the slack of Mr Pilkington’s coat. “Come now! You’re a good kid! Shall we say twenty-five thousand?”
“We will not say twenty-five thousand! Let me go!”
“Now, now, now!” pleaded Mr Goble. “Be sensible! don’t get all worked up! Say, do have a good cigar!”
“I won’t have a good cigar!” shouted Mr Pilkington.
He detached himself with a jerk, and stalked with long strides up the stage. Mr Goble watched him go with a lowering gaze. A heavy sense of the unkindness of fate was oppressing Mr Goble. If you couldn’t gyp a bone-headed amateur out of a piece of property, whom could you gyp? Mr Goble sighed. It hardly seemed to him worth while going on.
4.
Out in the street Wally had overtaken Jill, and they faced one another in the light of a street lamp. Forty-first Street at midnight is a quiet oasis. They had it to themselves.
Jill was pale, and she was breathing quickly, but she forced a smile.
“Well, Wally,” she said. “My career as a manager didn’t last long, did it?”
“What are you going to do?”
Jill looked down the street.