Part 50 (2/2)
Ca.s.sy, who had dried her eyes, looked at him and it was remarkable how pretty she looked.
”Why, no, Mr. Dunwoodie, I would much rather have you, only----”
Uncertainly she paused.
The eminent jurist took it up. ”Only what?”
”Well, all I know about law is that it is very expensive and I have nothing except my grandfather's portrait.”
Dunwoodie touched a b.u.t.ton. ”Ha! One moment.”
A thin young man, with a pasty face and a slight stoop, opened the door.
The old ruffian raised a stubby finger. ”Purdy, a cheque for a thousand dollars, to the order of Bianca Paliser, is to be mailed to this lady to-night.”
”But, Mr. Dunwoodie!” Ca.s.sy exclaimed.
”You must allow me to be your banker,” he told her, and turned again to the clerk. ”Get Mr. Jeroloman. Say, with my compliments, I shall be obliged if he will look in here. And, Purdy, see to it that that cheque is attended to. Mrs. Paliser will give you her address.”
”But, Mr. Dunwoodie!” Ca.s.sy exclaimed again, as the sallow youth went out.
To distract her attention, instantly Jones improvised a limerick. ”There was a young man named Purdy, who was not what you'd call very st.u.r.dy. To be more of a sport, he drank gin by the quart, and danced on a hurdy-gurdy.”
”You're insane,” announced Ca.s.sy, who was a trifle demented herself.
Dunwoodie extracted his towel. ”Jeroloman is the attorney for the other side. He will want to meet Mrs. Paliser, but that honour will not be his to-day.”
Ca.s.sy stood up. ”I should hope not. He would be the last camel on the straw--I mean the last straw on the camel.”
Dunwoodie, rising also, gave her his fine bow and to Jones a hand.
Then as the two made for the door, from over her shoulder she smiled back at him.
”My grandmother could not have been nicer.”
”What do you mean by that?” Jones absently inquired.
But, in the rotunda now, Mr. Purdy was asking her address. If he had dared he would have followed her there. Fortune favouring, he would have followed her to the ends of the earth. It was what one of our allies calls the thunderbolt. Never before had he beheld such a face. Earnestly he prayed that he might behold it again. Allah is great. The prayer was granted.
In the canon below, Jones, as he piloted her to the subway, pulled at his gloves.
”If I had the ability, I would write an opera, call it 'Danae' and offer you the t.i.tle-role.”
Ca.s.sy, her thoughts on her grandmother, repeated it. ”Danae?”
”Yes, the lady disconnected by marriage with Jupiter who tubbed her in gold--gold ink, I suppose. But as I am not a composer I shall put you between the sheets--of a novel I mean. Fiction has its consolations.”
But now, leaving the canon, they entered a cavern which a tunnel fluted.
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