He was wondering what was the
effect upon her of this climax of his revelation, when she whispered:
"Do you suppose--I can speak--to my father?"
"Of course. He likes all young women. And I told you that he and I
were close friends."
"Then--come on." She arose, clinging to him, and drew him after her.
Halfway to Joe she breathed: "You please say something first.
Anything."
He recognized this as the appeal of one whose faculties were reeling.
There had never been any attempt here at Cedar Crest to conceal Joe
Ellison's past, and in Larry's case there had been only such
concealment as might help his evasion of his dangers. And so Larry
remarked as Joe Ellison took his wide hat off his white hair and stood
bareheaded before them:
"Joe, Miss Cameron knows who I really am, and about my having been in
Sing Sing; and I've just told her about our having been friends there.
Also I told her about your having a daughter. It interested her and
she asked me if she couldn't talk to you, so I brought her over."
Larry stood aside and tensely watched this meeting between father and
daughter. Joe bowed slightly, and with a dignified grace that overalls
and over fifteen years of prison could not take from one who during
his early and middle manhood had been known as the perfection of the
finished gentleman.
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