Adventure, December 1914 — page 138: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

136 most certainly I do not want a favor from you.” “You place me in an embarrassing posi- tion, Miss Dennis. Would you mind telling me exactly what you do want?”’ Something flamed in her eyes. “Tt doesn’t matter.” Putting up her hand she brushed something away. ‘What does it matter what I want! I quite realize that I am helpless; that since I can’t pay, I must owe some one. And since you, as you kindly put it, are likely to be more lenient than—those lawyers, it may as well be you. “But I can tell you this, Mr. Adair—that I’m going to pay that money to the utter- most farthing. I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, but if I live it shall be paid. As for these—” she picked up the bank- notes—‘“‘I’m wondering if you meant them asa dole. I ought to be grateful if you did, but—I’m not! Because I keep a lodging- house, that is no reason why I should re- ceive presents from my lodgers.”’ She stopped; he was speechless—the girl positively made him feel ashamed. Pres- ently she went on, speaking with an evident effort to seem indifferent. “I’m afraid I’m wasting my time, and yours. I ought to be getting your dinner ready.. Should it be a few minutes late I shall have to ask you to excuse me.” —* SHE went out of the room, and he stood staring at the door which she had closed behind her. “Of all the remarkable young women! Was there ever a man who thought he un- derstood a creature of the opposite sexe I should like to introduce him to Miss Wini- fred Dennis. I had no idea, until I entered this room—dunderhead that I was—that from her point of view I was taking a liberty in doing as I have done. She has made it perfectly clear now. “Of course I had no right to pay the money she owed; and, as a mere lodger of a few weeks’ standing, I had still less right to make her a present of what to her is a large sum of money. ‘Very well. Ill be her creditor; I'll hold the bill of sale on the contents of the Dovecote. Though what I’m going to do if she ever should offer to pay is beyond me altogether.” As he was about to gather up the papers which the lady had left behind her, his at- Adventure tention was caught by something which lay among them on the tablecloth. ‘“What’s that? Isn’t it the brooch she was wearing? It must have got loose and fallen without her noticing it.”” He took it up. “It’s extremely absurd, but—are there visions about that I should seem to fancy I have seen so many things before? My mother had a brooch like this—it’s again my mother—I remember it quite well. “It was a peridot, I think; one of the finest specimens I ever saw. I remember my mother telling me that a peridot was one of the gems in the breastplate worn by the Jewish high-priest. Set in the center of the stone itself, in my mother’s, just as is the case with this, was a pearl. You pressed it and the back flew open. Why, so does this! How very odd! In the back of my mother’s brooch was a miniature of my father—and, as I’m his son—there it is!”’ “T seem to have wandered into a world of coincidences. Finding my mother’s jewels in that case in Creed’s bedroom was strange enough, but to find that Miss Winifred Den- nis had been wearing my mother’s brooch seems to me to be a good deal stranger. By what amazing chain of circumstances can it have strayed into her possession?”’ He was still staring at the brooch when the door reopened. As if unwittingly, he slipped the hand which held the brooch into his jacket-pocket. Miss Dennis came into the room. In her demeanor there was a subtle change—as if her pride had had a fall. Her voice was meekness itself. “Mr. Adair, I was very horrid to you just now; I have come away from cooking your dinner to tell you so. I quite realize that you meant to be kind, and that you were kind. Quite frankly, I don’t know what I should have done without you. I was in despair’s last ditch when first you knocked at the door and asked to see the rooms. Before this, my mother and I would have been without a roof over our heads if it had not been for you. And—and now you’ve paid those horrid people what I owed them. I believe you meant to make me a present of the money.” “T did; I certainly did. I tell you that quite candidly, Miss Dennis. My point of view was this—I’m quite comfortable here, I couldn’t be more so; which isn’t strange, since you do everything you can for my comfort. I want to remain. It didn’t seem to me to bea bad speculation, since I have, cComicloook< C@