"Bob" rocked backward and kicked up her neatly shod feet; she
hugged herself and snickered with a malicious enjoyment not wholly
Christian-like.

"But--we 'ain't even got an option! It takes _money_ to lease
close-in stuff." Tom was bewildered.

"Of course. And they realized that, or Bell did, as soon as he'd
had time to collect himself. But it was too late then; he had
betrayed himself and he knew it. Oh, he was sore! He'd have flung
me out if I'd been a man. I got mad, too, and I told him it made
no real difference whether I was bluffing or not; the jig was up,
so far as he was concerned. I reminded him of what Henry had just
said--that the oil business is a game of wits, and that when you
know what the other fellow is doing you have him licked. I
admitted that he could probably keep me from getting the lease,
but I could also keep him from getting it. Bell nearly had a
stroke at that threat. Henry behaved very decently throughout. I
think it must have pleased him to find that somebody in Wichita,
besides him, had the courage to defy his father; anyhow, he said,
'"Bob" has beaten us at our own game. She knows enough now to
place that lease in half an hour, and I think we'd better take
her in. Otherwise she'll wire Knute, and he'll probably protect
her for an interest.'

"That made me feel awfully fraudulent, but his smarty remarks
about women in the oil business still rankled, so I just sat
pretty and blinked like a little owl. Bell swore. In his best and
most horrible manner, he swore, but--he gave in." "Bob" laughed