Part 5 (1/2)
I've faith enough in _you_,--but helping Fate is a tricky game.”
”All right, I'm willing to play a tricky game, then!”
”You are, son! Against whom?”
And the pair entering the wide doorway, met Sir Herbert Binney coming out.
”Oh, h.e.l.lo, Uncle,” cried Bates, grasping the situation with both hands.
”Let me present you to Miss Everett; Dorcas, this is my uncle.”
”How do you do, Uncle Bunny?” said Dorcas, quite unwitting that, in her surprised embarra.s.sment, she had used the very word she had feared she would utter!
And an unfortunate mistake it proved. The smiling face of the Englishman grew red and wrathful, a.s.suming, as he did, and not without cause, that the young woman intended to guy him.
”Daughter of your own mother, hey?” he said to her. ”Ready with a sharp tongue for any occasion!”
Apology was useless, all that quick-witted Dorcas could think of was to carry it off as a jest.
”No, sir,” she said, with an adorable glance of coquetry at the angry face, ”but I have an unbreakable habit of using nicknames,--and as I've heard of you from Ricky, and I almost feel as if I knew you,--I, why, I just naturally called you Bunny for a pet name.”
”Oho, you did! Well, I can't believe that. I think you're making fun of my trade! And that's the one thing I won't stand! Perhaps when your precious Ricky depends on those same buns for his daily food, you won't feel so scornful of them!”
”I never dreamed you were ashamed of them, sir,” and Dorcas gave up the idea of peacemaking and became irritating.
”Nor am I!” he blazed. ”You are an impertinent chit, and I bid you good-day!”
”Now you _have_ done it!” said Bates.
CHAPTER III
The Scrawled Message
But, as it turned out, Dorcas hadn't ”done it” at all. Bates on reaching his aunt's apartment found no one at home. But very soon Sir Herbert Binney appeared.
”Look here, Richard,” he began, ”I've taken a fancy to that little girl of yours----”
”She isn't mine.”
”You'd like her to be?”
”Very much; in conditions that would please us both.”
”Meaning Bunless conditions. I can't offer you those, but I do say now, and, for the last time, if you will take hold of my Bun proposition, I'll give you any salary you want, any interest in the business you ask, and make you my sole heir. I've already done the last, but unless you fall in with my plans now, I'm going to make another will and your name will be among the missing.”
”But, Uncle Herbert----”
”I've no time for discussion, my boy; I've to dress for dinner,--I'm going out,--but this thing must be settled now, as far as you're concerned. You've had time enough to think it over, you've had time to discuss it with that pretty little girl of yours,--my, but her eyes flashed as she called me Uncle Bunny! It was a slip,--I saw that, and I pretended to be annoyed, but I liked her all the better for her sauciness. Well, Richard,--yes or no?”
”Can't you give me another twenty-four hours?”