"You don't mean," Reedy swiped his left hand roughly at the wisp of hair on his forehead, "that he disregarded your wishes?"
"He certainly did." Indignation was getting the better of her voice. "The low-lived--the contemptible--common person. And he insulted me with that--that creature."
"Well, of all the gall!" Reedy was quite as indignant as Mrs. Barnett, for very different if more substantial reasons. He had seen more and more that a fight with Rogeen was ahead, a fight to the finish; and the further he went the larger that fight looked. The easiest way to smash a man, Reedy had found, was to deprive him of money. A man can't carry out many schemes unless he can get hold of money. Jenkins had kept a close eye on Jim Crill, and had grown continually more uneasy lest the old chap become too favourably impressed with Rogeen. He had early sensed the old man's weak spot--one of them--Crill hated to be pestered. That was the vulnerable side at which Evelyn Barnett, the niece, could jab. And Reedy had planned all her attacks. This last move of Crill's--hiring Rogeen to lend money for him, had alarmed Reedy more than anything that had happened. For it would give Rogeen a big influence on the Mexican side. Most of the ranchers needed to borrow money, and it would put the man on whose word the loans would be made in mighty high favour. To offset this, Reedy had engineered an attack by Mrs. Barnett on the old gentleman's leisure. She had worried him and nagged him with the argument that he ought not to bother with a lot of business details, but should turn them over to her. She would see to the little things for him. He had reluctantly granted some sort of consent to this, a consent which Evelyn had construed meant blanket authority.
"He flatly refused," Mrs. Barnett was still thinking blisteringly of Bob Rogeen, "to obey my wishes in the matter. I told him plainly," she bit her lips again, "that neither Uncle nor I would consent to money being furnished women like that."
"I should say not." Reedy agreed with unctuous righteousness in his plump face. "And to think of that scalawag, making a loan right in your face, after you had vetoed it."
"He'll never make another." Mrs. Barnett's lips would have almost bit a thread in two. "Just wait until I get to Uncle Jim!"