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Warden Desmas came up two days before he was transferred, and had another short conversation with him through his cell door. "You'll be transferred on Monday," he said, in his reserved, slow way. "They'll give you a yard, though it won't be much good to you we only allow a half-hour a day in it. I've told the overseer about your business arrangements. He'll treat you right in that matter.
"Oh, yes," said Cowperwood, observantly and shrewdly, "that is the yard Mr. Desmas spoke of." At the mention of the magic name, if Bonhag had been a horse, his ears would have been seen to lift. For, of course, if Cowperwood was so friendly with Desmas that the latter had described to him the type of cell he was to have beforehand, it behooved Bonhag to be especially careful.
"A very remarkable man, that," he remarked to Desmas. "Very," replied the warden. "You can tell that by looking at him." The four looked in through the barred door where he was working, without being observed, having come up quite silently. "Hard at it, Frank?" asked Steger. Cowperwood glanced over his shoulder and got up.
For Cowperwood well, he would have to look at Cowperwood and see what he thought. At the same time, Steger's intercessions were not without their effect on Desmas. So the morning after Cowperwood's entrance the warden received a letter from Terrence Relihan, the Harrisburg potentate, indicating that any kindness shown to Mr. Cowperwood would be duly appreciated by him.
At the same time, he could not help thinking, if he seemed strange to himself, now, how much stranger he would seem then, behind these narrow bars working at so commonplace a task as caning chairs. Nevertheless, he now thanked Desmas for this, as well as for the sheets and the toilet articles which had just been brought in.
On the way Desmas commented on the fact that he had always been a model prisoner. "He kept a little garden out there in that yard of his," he confided to Walter Leigh. "He had violets and pansies and geraniums out there, and they did very well, too." Leigh smiled. It was like Cowperwood to be industrious and tasteful, even in prison. Such a man could not be conquered.
Say what you will, one vigorous man inherently respects another. And Desmas was vigorous physically. He eyed Cowperwood and Cowperwood eyed him. Instinctively Desmas liked him. He was like one tiger looking at another. Instinctively Cowperwood knew that he was the warden. "This is Mr. Desmas, isn't it?" he asked, courteously and pleasantly. "Yes, sir, I'm the man," replied Desmas interestedly.
"Butler is down on him," Strobik said to Desmas, on one occasion. "It's that girl of his that's at the bottom of it all. If you listened to Butler you'd feed him on bread and water, but he isn't a bad fellow. As a matter of fact, if George had had any sense Cowperwood wouldn't be where he is to-day. But the big fellows wouldn't let Stener alone. They wouldn't let him give Cowperwood any money."
He was to have his own underwear, silk and wool thank God! and perhaps they would let him take off these shoes after a while. With these modifications and a trade, and perhaps the little yard which Desmas had referred to, his life would be, if not ideal, at least tolerable.
Desmas decided, therefore, that if Cowperwood were persona non grata to the "Big Three," it might be necessary to be indifferent to him, or at least slow in extending him any special favors. For Stener a good chair, clean linen, special cutlery and dishes, the daily papers, privileges in the matter of mail, the visits of friends, and the like.
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