Part 12 (2/2)

”My dear Miss Day,” he stammered, ”if you do not find this--er-- lawyer, you mention, a lawyer will be a.s.signed by the court to attend to things, and you would have to make your payments through him. In the meantime--” he put the purse in her hand. ”I am more sorry than I can tell you that I have had to fix this fine--it is purely arbitrary --I am very sorry--”

”Of course you would be,” said Felicia slowly, her clear eyes looking at him without malice and without scorn. ”You must be sorry a great deal of the time, aren't you? You couldn't be really happy making so many people unhappy as I've watched go to talk with you today--they looked vairee unhappy.”

The gentle unfairness of her rebuke was most disconcerting.

”Perhaps I make some of them happy,” he protested.

She shook her head.

”I didn't see a happy one,” she answered simply.

An odd feeling that he wanted her to think well of him worried him.

Why he should have cared what this bedraggled, bankrupt little creature thought he did not fathom, perhaps it was just that she looked so helpless and so old that his heart smote him. Awkward as a boy he stared out through the bedrizzled windowpane into the spring rain.

”I hope you won't think I'm impertinent,” he suggested suddenly, ”but I believe you said you arrived from out of town this morning and came directly here. Have you some friend to whom you are going?”

From beneath Louisa's ridiculous old bonnet her hair scraggled untidily, her pallor accentuated the dark circles under her drooping eyelids. Yet when she looked up at him, the glory in those tired eyes surprised him.

”I'm going,”--oh, how she wanted to say ”to Dudley Hamilt”! It took all her reserve to finish her sentence calmly! ”To eighteen Columbia Heights.”

”That's not far,” he felt an inexpressible relief that she had somewhere to go, ”I'm not quite ready to go home myself, but my car is waiting for me. Suppose we have one of these boys take your bag down for you and that you let my chauffeur drive you to Columbia Heights while he is waiting for me--I should be very glad if you would--”

She did not answer him until he opened the door for her. When she looked up at him he was fairly startled by her wide ingenuous smile.

”I was just pretending,” she said clearly, ”that I had my ox-cart so that I wouldn't have to walk to find Columbia Heights--I was just thinking how delightful it would be if I did for I'm afraid--as afraid as Margot is of a bat--of all of the things in the street--you are indeed kind--” ah, the stilted phrases with which Mademoiselle had instructed her so many years ago!--”to suggest a drive for me--”

He went back to his papers positively chuckling.

”She's refres.h.i.+ngly different,” he thought. ”Refres.h.i.+ngly different.”

But he sighed as he handed the papers to the clerk. The whole case seemed a hopeless tangle. And now that she was gone Felicia herself seemed absolutely unreal. He rubbed his eyes and plunged into the next thing.

But Felicia, resting comfortably on the wide seat of the judge's car shut her tired eyes and let her head sink against the cus.h.i.+ons. Her heart was racing faster than this swiftly moving motor, she felt as though she could not breathe.

They came to a slow halt before a pile of bricks and mortar. Above them loomed a huge unfinished apartment house, from which were tramping forth the home-going laborers. The smell of the wet lime as they tracked across the rather narrow street was over-powering. The chauffeur opened the door and spoke to her respectfully.

”There must be some mistake in your address, Madam, this is eighteen Columbia Heights.” She was overwhelmed, she could think nothing whatever to say to him. He came to the rescue himself with a quiet, ”Perhaps if you have the name of the person you wanted to see--”

”It's Dudley Hamilt.”

There was a drug store on the opposite corner. He disappeared within its door and it was several minutes before he came back. This time he had a definite word.

”The druggist says that the Hamilt house stood where this apartment is being built, Madam. He says he understands that the elder Mr. Hamilt is dead but that the younger one has an office somewhere in Manhattan.

Perhaps you could speak with him on the telephone--”

Speak with him! Her face glowed with sudden color.

”How nice of you!” she rose obediently to follow him, putting Bab.i.+.c.he carefully on the cus.h.i.+oned seat. ”Will you tell the druggist that I'd like to?”

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