“Suppose it's not as big a burg as New York?”
“Hardly--it's just a hustling mountain town of about twenty-five thousand people.”
“Lot o' swells from around New York live down there, they tell me.”
“Yes, the Vanderbilts have a beautiful castle just outside.”
“As far as the eye can reach, one blue range piled above another until they're lost in the dim skies on the horizon.”
“Gee, it may be pretty hard to find your folks if they just live in the mountains near Asheville?”
“Unless your directions are more explicit--I should think so.”
“You know, I thought the mountains near Asheville was a bunch o' hills off one side like the Palisades, that you couldn't miss if you tried. I've never been outside of New York--since I can remember. I'd love to see real mountains.”
The last sentence was spoken in a wistful pathos that touched Mary with its irresistible appeal. Her mother instincts responded to it in quick sympathy.
“You've missed a lot,” she answered gravely.
“I'll bet I have. It's a rotten old town, this New York----”
He paused, and a queer light flashed from his steel eyes.
“Until you get your hand on its throat,” he added, bringing his square jaws together.
“That's just what--little girl!” he cried, with a ring of pride. “You see, I'm an inventor and I won a little pile on my first trick. I've got a machine-shop in a room eight-by-ten over on the East Side.”
“It's too dirty. I couldn't let a pretty girl like you in such a place.” He paused and resumed the tone of his narrative where she interrupted him. “You see, I've just put a new crimp in a carburetor for the automobile folks. They're tickled to death over it and I've got automobiles to burn. Will you go to ride with me tomorrow?”
“Well, in the language of New York, that would be going some, wouldn't it?”
“And why not, I'd like to know?” he cried with scorn. “Who's to tell us we can't? You've no kids to bother you tomorrow. I'm my own boss. You've seen Asheville, but you've never seen New York until you sit down beside me in a big six-cylinder racing car I'm handlin' next week. Let me show it to you. I'll swing her around to your door at eight o'clock. In twenty-five minutes we'll clear the Bronx and shoot into New Rochelle. There'll be no cops out to bother us, and not a wheel in sight. It'll do you good. Let me take you! I owe you that much for bein' so nice to me today. Will you go with me?”