Part 38 (1/2)
”I did. I suppose you're going to propound another conundrum of a kind I've heard before--why you should have so many things you don't particularly need, while Miss Hartley must go on sewing when she's hardly able for it in her most unpleasant shack? I don't know whether the fact that you found a mine answers the question; but if it doesn't the thing's beyond your philosophy.”
”Come off!” Vane bade him with signs of impatience. ”There are times when your moralizing gets on one's nerves. Anyhow, I straightened out one difficulty--I found the rent man, who'd been round worrying her, and got rid of him.”
Carroll groaned in mock dismay, which covered some genuine annoyance with himself; but Vane frowned.
”What's the matter?” he inquired. ”Do you want a drink?”
”I'll get over it,” Carroll informed him. ”It isn't the first time I've suffered from the same complaint. But I'd like to point out that your chivalrous impulses may be the ruin of you some day. Why didn't you let Drayton settle with the man? You gave him a check, I suppose?”
”Sure. I'd only a few loose dollars with me.” Vane frowned again. ”Now I see what you're driving at; and I want to say that any little reputation I possess can pretty well take care of itself.”
”Just so. No doubt it will be necessary; but it doesn't seem to have struck you that you're not the only person concerned.”
”It didn't,” Vane confessed with a further show of irritation. ”But who's likely to hear or take any notice of the thing?”
”I can't tell; but you make enemies as well as friends, and you're walking in slippery places which you're not altogether accustomed to. You can't meet your difficulties with the ax here.”
”That's true,” a.s.sented Vane. ”It's rather a pity. Anyhow, I'm not to be scared out of my interest in Celia Hartley.”
”What is your interest in her? It's a question that may be asked.”
”As you pretend that you don't know, I'll have pleasure in telling you again. When I first struck this city, played out and ragged, she was waitress at a little hotel, and she brought me a double portion of the nicest things at supper. What's more, she sewed up some of my clothes, and I struck a job on the strength of looking comparatively decent. It's the kind of thing you're apt to remember. One doesn't meet with too much kindness in this blamed censorious world.”
”I'd expect you to remember,” Carroll smiled.
They went in to dinner and when the meal was over they walked across to Nairn's. They were ushered into a room in which several other guests were a.s.sembled, and Vane sat down beside Jessy Horsfield. A place on the sofa she occupied was invitingly empty; he did not know, of course, that she had adroitly got rid of her previous companion as soon as he came in.
”I want to thank you; I was over at Miss Hartley's this afternoon,” he began.
”I understood that you were at the mining meeting.”
”So I was, your brother would tell you that--”
Vane broke off, remembering that he had defeated Horsfield; but Jessy laughed encouragingly.
”He did so--you were opposed to him; but it doesn't follow that I share all his views. Perhaps I ought to be a stauncher partizan.”
”If you'll be just to both of us, I'll be satisfied.”
Jessy reflected that while this was, no doubt, a commendable sentiment, he might have made a better use of the opening she had given him by at least hinting that he would value her sympathy.
”I suppose that means that you're convinced of the equity of your cause?”
she suggested.
”I dare say I deserve the rebuke; but aren't you trying to switch me off the subject?” Vane retorted with a laugh. ”It's Celia Hartley that I want to talk about.”
He did her an injustice. Jessy felt that she had earned his grat.i.tude, and she had no objection to his expressing it.
”It was a happy thought of yours to give her hats and things to make; I'm ever so much obliged to you,” he went on. ”I felt that you could be trusted to think of the right thing. An ingenious idea of that kind would never have occurred to me.”
Jessy smiled up at him.