That's the hold Madrina has on him. She doesn't burn any incense. She
wants all the incense there is being burned, for herself; and it keeps
old Felix down in his place--keeps him hanging around too. You stick
to the same method if you want to make a go of it."
"I thought he wrote. I thought he did aesthetic criticisms and
essays," said Sylvia, laughing aloud at Arnold's quaint advice.
"Oh, he does. I guess he's chief medicine-man in his tribe all right.
It's not only women who kowtow; when old man Merriman wants to know
for sure whether to pay a million for a cracked Chinese vase, he
always calls in Felix Morrison. Chief adviser to the predatory rich,
that's one of his jobs! So you see," he came back to his first point,
"it must be some jolt for the sacred F.M. to have a young lady, _just
a young lady_, refuse to bow at the shrine. You couldn't have done a
smarter trick, by heck! I've been watching you all those weeks, just
too tickled for words. And I've been watching Morrison. It's been as
good as a play! He can't stick it out much longer, unless I miss my
guess, and I've known him ever since I was a kid. He's just waiting
for a good chance to turn on the faucet and hand you a full cup of his
irresistible fascination." He added carelessly, bouncing a ball up and
down on the tense catgut of his racquet: "What all you girls see in
that old wolf-hound, to lose your heads over! It gets me!"
"Why in the world 'wolf-hound'?" asked Sylvia.
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