Part 28 (2/2)
”Yes. He sent you his adieus by me.” A moment later she added: ”He asked me to marry him.”
”Of course,” nodded the magnate, ”they all do that. What did you say?”
”What I always say.”
”H'm!” He tapped his eyegla.s.ses meditatively upon the bridge of his high- arched nose. ”You might do worse. He suits me.”
”I have no doubt he could hold the millions together. In fact, he is the first one I have seen of whose ability in that line I am quite certain.
However--” She made a slight gesture of dismissal.
”I hope you didn't offend him?”
She raised her brows.
”Forgive me. I might have known--” He stared at the page before him for a moment. ”You have a certain finality about you that is almost masculine.
They never return to the charge--”
”Oh yes,” she demurred. ”There is Alton Clyde, for instance--”
Mr. Wayland dismissed Clyde with an inarticulate grunt of contempt which measured that young man's claim to consideration more comprehensively than could a wealth of words.
”I would think it over if I were you,” he advised. Then he pondered. ”If you would only change your mind, occasionally, like other girls--”
”I have changed my mind to-night--since Mr. Marsh left.”
”Good!” he declared, heartily.
”Yes. I have decided to go to Kalvik with you.”
On that very night, in a little, snow-smothered cabin crouching close against the Kalvik bluffs, another girl was seated at a piano. Her slim, white fingers had strayed upon the notes of a song which Boyd Emerson had sung. In her dream-filled eyes was the picture of a rough-garbed, silent man at her shoulder, and in her ears was the sound of his voice. Clear to the last melting note she played the air, and then a pitiful sob shook her. She bowed her golden head and hid her face in her arms, for a memory was upon her, a forgotten kiss was hot upon her lips, and she was very lonely.
CHAPTER XIII
IN WHICH CHERRY MALOTTE BECOMES SUSPICIOUS
At the hotel Emerson found Clyde and Fraser in Balt's room awaiting him.
They were noisy and excited at the success of the enterprise and at the prospect of immediate action.
Quoth ”Fingerless” Fraser: ”It has certainly lifted a load off my mind to put this deal through.”
Emerson was forced to smile. ”Now that you have succeeded,” said he, ”what next?”
”Back to the Coast. This town is a b.u.m.”
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