“C. Q.”; or, In the Wireless House
then it burst upon her! What an idiot she had been! To think that a common little red-haired beast like Fitzpatrick could or would do the decent thing, when he was, or foolishly fancied that he was, in love with the same girl as Cosmo Graeme. Why, it was his one great chance! Turn Cosmo over to the law and Micky could go on making love to Evelyn Farquhar and perhaps either persuade her into a vulgar intrigue or stir up such a scandal that the Earl would be compelled to buy him off. She had seen many a young coachman, many a red-cheeked chauffeur, annex thirty or forty thousand dollars by judiciously tampering with the tender affections of his master’s daughter. And as Lily Trevelyan was ready to believe the worst of anybody and did believe the worst of most people, she then and there stigmatized Micky as a rotten little sneak and consigned him to the lowest depths of the inferno. And a deep red slowly surged up her neck and into the roots of her yellow hair as she thought of the pilot-house and Micky asleep at his desk in the blaze of yesterday morning’s sun.
A tiger-like resolve to stand by Cosmo to the last possessed her. If they took him it should154
