The Odds | Page 4

business is hungry work for
all of us."
Dot frowned a little. It did not please her to be reminded of his mission.
Her former prejudice began to revive within her, his kindness
notwithstanding.
"I don't like the thought of it myself," she told him abruptly. "But, of
course, I'm only a 'new chum.'"
"What?" he said, pausing in the act of pouring himself out a drink.
"That sounds as if you want that scoundrel Bill to get away."
She coloured in some confusion under his look. How could she expect
to make a policeman understand? "No--no!" she said, with vehemence.
"I'm not quite so soft as that. I'd shoot him myself if he came my way.
But I hate to think of a dozen men all on the track of one. It really isn't
fair."
He laughed, but without superiority. "And yet you'd swell the odds? Do
you call that fair?"
Dot paused to collect her arguments. It seemed that possibly even this
machine of justice carried a small fragment of sympathy in his soul.
Certainly he was not the judicial automaton she had expected him to
be.
"It's like this," she said. "I'd shoot him if he came my way because he
has done us a lot of mischief, and I want to stop it. But I'd do it
squarely. I wouldn't do it when he wasn't looking. And I
wouldn't--ever--make it my profession to hunt down criminals and even
employ black men to help. I think that's hateful. I couldn't live that way.
I'd be above it."

"I see." He lifted his glass to her in a silent toast, and drank a deep
draught. "Then if you chanced to know where he was, I take it you'd
just settle him yourself, if you could. But you wouldn't in any case give
him away to the police. Is that your point of view?"
"It isn't unreasonable, is it?" she said, with a touch of eagerness. "I
mean, if you weren't what you are, wouldn't you do the same?"
"I don't know," he said, smiling at her whimsically. "You see, being
what I am handicaps me rather. I haven't much time for working out
nice problems."
Dot leaned back again. He had disappointed her. But she could not
neglect her duty on that account. She took her arm out of the water and
dried it. Then she arose.
"How does it feel?" he said.
"Oh, only a little stiff," she answered, turning away. "Now I am going
to get you something to eat. Sit down, won't you?"
Her tone was distant, but he did not seem to notice any change. He
thanked her and sat down, facing the open door. Robin sat pressed
against his knee. It was evident that the dog entertained no doubts
regarding the visitor. Having passed him as respectable, he accepted
him without reserve.
This fact presently occurred to Dot as she waited upon her visitor, and,
since it was not her nature to prolong an uncomfortable situation, she
broke the silence to comment upon it.
"He doesn't take to everyone at sight," she said.
"No?" She saw again that frank, disarming smile. "You see, missis, I
know the ways of animals, and a very useful sort of knowledge I've
found it."
"I wonder why you call me missis," she said. "I'm Jack's sister, not his

wife."
He looked up at her. "But you're the boss of the establishment, I take
it?"
She smiled also half against her will. "I'm rather new at present. But no
doubt I shall learn."
"And then you'll go and boss some one else?" he suggested.
She coloured a little. "No. I shall stick to Jack," she said, with decision.
"Lucky Jack!" he said. "But you're quite right. There's no one good
enough for you around here. We're a low breed mostly."
"I didn't mean that!" she protested, in quick distress. "I never thought
that!"
"I know," he said. "I know. But you've sort of felt it all the same. Me,
for instance!" His intensely blue eyes challenged her suddenly.
"Haven't you said to yourself, 'That man may be up to local standard,
but he's made of shocking crude material'? Straight now! Haven't you?"
She hesitated, her face burning under his direct look. "Do you--do you
really want to know what I think?" she said.
"I do." There was something uncompromising in the brief rejoinder, yet
somehow she did not find him formidable.
She answered him without difficulty in spite of her embarrassment. "I
think, then, that it isn't you yourself at all that I feel like that about. It's
just your profession."
"Ah!" He began to smile again. "Once live down that, and I might be
possible. Is that it?"
She nodded, still flushed, yet curiously not uneasy. "Something like
that.