'You've got it wrong, Miss Kingship,' Gant said. 'That's what's going on in my mind, not your father's.'
'See?' Kingship said. 'He came to me of his own accord.'
Marion stared at Gant 'Just who are you? What makes this your business?'
'I knew Ellen.'
'So I understand,' she snapped. 'Do you know Bud?'
'I've never had the pleasure.'
'Then will you please explain to me what you're doing here, making accusations against him behind his back!'
'It's quite a story--'
'You've said enough, Gant,' Kingship interrupted.
Marion said, 'Are you jealous of Bud? Is that it? Because Ellen preferred him to you?'
'That's right,' Gant said drily. 'I'm consumed with jealousy.'
'And have you heard of the slander laws?' she demanded.
Kingship edged towards the door, signaling Gant with his eyes. 'Yes,' Marion said, 'you'd better go.'
'Wait a minute,' she said as Gant opened the door. 'Is this going to stop?'
Kingship said, 'There's nothing to stop, Marion.'
'Whoever's behind it,'-she looked at Gant-'it's got to stop. We never talked about school. Why should we, with Ellen? It just never came up.'
'All right, Marion,' Kingship said, 'all right.' He followed Gant into the hall and turned to pull the door closed.
'It's got to stop,' she said.
'All right.' He hesitated, and his voice dropped. 'You're still coming tonight, aren't you, Marion?'
Her lips clenched. She thought for a moment. 'Because I don't want to hurt Bud's mother's feelings,' she said finally.
Kingship closed the door.
They went to a drugstore on Lexington Avenue, where Gant ordered coffee and cherry pie, and Kingship, a glass of milk.
'So far, so good,' Gant said.
Kingship was gazing at a paper napkin he held. 'What do you mean?'
'At least we know where we stand. He didn't tell her about Stoddard. That makes it practically certain that-'
'You heard Marion,' Kingship said. 'They don't talk about school because of Ellen.'
Gant regarded him with slightly lifted eyebrows. 'Come on,' he said slowly, 'that may satisfy her; she's in love with him. But for a man not to tell his fiancйe where he went to college...'
'It isn't as if he lied to her,' Kingship protested.
Sardonically Gant said, 'They just didn't talk about school.'
'Considering the circumstances, I think that's understandable.'
'Sure. The circumstances being that he was mixed up with Dorothy.'
'That's an assumption you have no right to make.'
Gant stirred his coffee slowly and sipped it. He added more cream and stirred it again. 'You're afraid of her, aren't you,' he said.
'Of Marion? Don't be ridiculous.' Kingship set his glass of milk down firmly. 'A man is innocent until he's proved guilty.'
'Then we've got to find proof, don't we?'
'You see? You're assuming he's a fortune hunter before you've started.'
'I'm assuming a hell of a lot more than that,' Gant said, lifting a forkful of pie to his mouth. When he had swallowed it he said, 'What are you going to do?'
Kingship was looking at the napkin again. 'Nothing.'
'You're going to let them get married?'
'I couldn't stop them even if I wanted to. They're both over twenty-one, aren't they?'
'You could hire detectives. There are four days yet. They might find something.'
'Might,' Kingship said. 'If there's anything to find. Or Bud might get wind of it and tell Marion.'
Gant smiled. 'I thought I was being ridiculous about you and Marion.'
Kingship sighed. 'Let me tell you something,' he said, not looking at Gant. 'I had a wife and three daughters. Two daughters were taken from me. My wife I pushed away myself. Maybe I pushed one of the daughters too. So now I have only one daughter. I'm fifty-seven years old and I have one daughter and some men I play golf and talk business with. That's all.'
After a moment Kingship turned to Gant, his face set rigidly. 'What about you?' he demanded. 'What is your real interest in this affair? Maybe you just enjoy chattering about your analytical brain and showing people what a clever fellow you are. You didn't have to go through that whole rigamarole, you know. In my office, about Ellen's letter. You could have just put the book on my desk and said 'Bud Corliss went to Stoddard.' Maybe you just like to show off.'
'Maybe,' Gant said lightly. 'Also maybe I think he might have killed your daughters and I've got this quixotic notion that murderers should be punished.'
Kingship finished his milk. 'I think you'd better just go back to Yonkers and enjoy your vacation.'
'White Plains.' Gant scraped together the syrupy remains of the pie with the side of his fork. 'Do you have ulcers?' he asked, glancing at the empty milk glass.
Kingship nodded.
Gant leaned back on his stool and surveyed the man beside him. 'And about thirty pounds overweight, I'd say.' He put the red-clotted fork in his mouth and drew it out clean. 'I should estimate that Bud has you figured for ten more years, tops. Or maybe he'll get impatient in three or four years and try to hurry you on.'
Kingship got off his stool. He pulled a dollar from a money-clipped roll and put it on the counter. 'Good-by, Mr. Gant,' he said, and strode away.
The counterman came over and took the dollar. 'Anything else?' he asked.
Gant shook his head.
He caught the 5: 19 for White Plains.
In writing to his mother, Bud had made only the most vague allusions to Kingship's money. Once or twice he had mentioned Kingship Copper, but never with any clarifying phrases, and he was certain that she, whose poverty- formed conception of wealth was as hazy and inexact as a pubert's visions of orgies, had not the slightest real comprehension of the luxuriance of living into which the presidency of such a corporation could be translated. He had looked forward eagerly, therefore, to the moment when he could introduce her to Marion and her father, and to the surrounding magnificence of Kingship's duplex apartment, knowing that in light of the coming marriage her awe-widened eyes would regard each inlaid table and glittering chandelier as evidence, not of Kingship's capabilities, but of his own. The evening, however, was a disappointment. Not that his mother's reaction was anything less than he had anticipated; with mouth partially opened and teeth lightly touching her lower lip, she drew in her breath with soft sibilance, as though seeing not one but a series of miracles; the formally attired servant-a butler!-the velvety depth of the carpets, the wallpaper that wasn't paper at all but intricately textured cloth, the leather-bound books, the golden clock, the silver tray from which the butler served champagne- champagne!-in crystal goblets... Vocally, she restrained her admiration to a gently smiling 'Lovely, lovely,' accompanied by a slight nodding of the stiff newly-waved gray hair, giving the impression that such surroundings were by no means completely alien to her,-but when her eyes met Bud's as the toast was drunk, the bursting pride she felt leaped out to him like a thrown kiss, while one work-roughened hand surreptitiously marveled at the cloth of the couch on which she sat.
No, his mother's reaction was warming and wonderful. What made the evening a disappointment was the fact that Marion and Leo had apparently had an argument; Marion spoke to her father only when appearances made it inescapable. And furthermore, the argument must have been about him, since Leo addressed him with hesitant unfocused eyes, while Marion was determinedly, defiantly effusive, clinging to Mm and calling him 'dear' and 'darling,' which she had never done before when others were present. The first faint worry began to sting him like a pebble in his shoe.
