Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/362

 he was really Mr. Winston, as it would have been to believe Jimmy Payne's penny-dreadful stories. But you can't go on doubting when a virtuous old lady claims a man as her own son. I had to accept the fact that he was Jack Winston.

For an instant I felt as if it were a play, and I were some one in the audience, looking on. It didn't seem real, or to have anything to do with me. Then I caught his eyes. They were saying, "Do forgive me"; and with that I realized how much there was to forgive. He had made me behave like a perfect little fool, giving him good advice and tips—actually tips!—telling him (or very nearly) that he was "quite like a gentleman," and hundreds of other outrageous things which all rushed into my mind, as they say your whole past life does when you are drowning.

I gave him a glance—quite a short one, because I could hardly look him in the face, thinking of those tips and other things.

Then I turned away, and began talking to Dad; but very likely I talked great nonsense, for I hadn't the least idea what I was saying, except that I kept exclaiming the same five words over and over, like a phonograph doll: "I am glad to see you! I am glad to see you!"

Perhaps I had presence of mind enough to invite the dear thing to take a stroll with me, for the sake of escaping from Brown; for, anyway, I woke up from a sort of dream, to find myself walking into a summer-house alone with Dad.

"Don't you think," he was saying, "that you treated Mr. Winston rather rudely?"