Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/264

244 "I must confess that I spied this morning," she went on. "It was rude of me, perhaps. But I think almost anything is excusable under the circumstances, don't you? I witnessed a scene in the hall above—Mr. Magee, I know who has the two hundred thousand dollars!"

"You know?" cried Magee. His heart gave a great bound. At last! And then—he stopped. "I m afraid I must ask you not to tell me," he added sadly.

The girl looked at him in wonder. She was of a type common in Magee's world—delicate, finely-reared, sensitive. True, in her pride and haughtiness she suggested the snow-capped heights of the eternal hills. But at sight of those feminine heights Billy Magee had always been one to seize his alpenstock in a more determined grip, and climb. Witness his attentions to the supurb [sic] Helen Faulkner. He had a moment of faltering. Here was a girl who at least did not doubt him, who ascribed to him the virtues of a gentleman, who was glad to trust in him. Should he transfer his allegiance? No, he could hardly do that now.