"I care very much for Miss Coolidge, if that is what you mean."
"Sure you do; and you've put up a game fight for her too, my boy. I'd like it in you if I wasn't on the other side. But you see we can't be easy on you just because of that. Sentiment and romance is one thing, while business is another. You and I don't belong in the same worlds--see? You can't rightly blame me because I was born different, can you?"
"Perhaps not; what would you make me believe?"
"I thought I'd put it that way so you'd understand, that's all. There's a difference in people, ain't there. I'm just as good looking as this Natalie Coolidge, ain't I? Sure I am; you can't even tell us apart when we are dressed up alike. I could come in here, and have you make love to me inside of twenty minutes. But we ain't a bit alike for all that. She's a lady, and I'm a crook--that's the difference. She's been brought up with all the money she wants, while I've had to hustle for every penny since I was a kid. Now life don't ever look the same to any two people like that."
"No," West admitted, beginning to realize her defence. "It is hardly probable it would."
"That's why I'm in this case," she went on, apparently unheeding his interruption. "I was brought up a thief, and I don't know anything else. I never did care much, but in this Coolidge matter, I've got just as much right to all that kale as she has--so naturally I'm going after it."
"As much right, you say? Why, who are you?"
She stood up straight, and looked at him, her eyes burning.
"Me!" scornfully, "Why I am Delia Hobart--'Diamond Del,' they call me."
"Yes, but that is not what you mean; that gives you no such right as you claim. You are Hobart's daughter then?"
"I didn't say so, Mister Captain West. I told you my moniker, that's all. Jim here brought me up, but he ain't no father to me, and his wife ain't my mother. It took me a while to find that out, but I got the thing straight at last. I saw then just what those two were driving at; first I didn't take no particular interest in the scheme; then I got to thinking until finally I hated that soft, downy thing; damn her, she'd robbed me, and I had a right to my share even if I had to steal it."
"What soft, downy thing?"
"Natalie Coolidge! Bah, I went out to see her once. Jim took me and we hid in the garden; and when I came back I was raving mad. Lord, why should that little idiot have everything while half the time I was hungry?"