Page:Guy Boothby--A Bid for Fortune.djvu/49

Rh A kindly church clock in the neighbourhood struck the hour, and others all round it immediately took up the tale. Before the last stroke had died away a hansom turned towards the gates from Bury Street, and in it, looking the picture of health and dainty beauty, sat the girl who, I had good reason to know, was more than all the world to me. To attract her attention and signal to the driver to pull up was the work of a second, and a minute later I had helped her to alight, and we were strolling together across the square towards the building.

"Ah, Dick," she said, with a roguish smile, in answer to a question of mine, "you don't know what trouble I had to get away this morning. Papa had a dozen places he wished me to go to with him. But when I told him I had some very important business of my own to attend to before I could go calling with him, he was kind enough to let me off."

"I'll be bound he thought you meant business with a dressmaker," I replied laughing, determined to show her that I was not unversed in the ways of women.

"I'm afraid that he did," she answered blushing, "and for that very reason alone I feel horribly guilty. But my heart told me I must see you at once, whatever happened."

Could any man desire a prettier speech than that? If so, I was not that man. We were inside the building by this time, ascending the great staircase. A number of pretty well-dressed girls were to be seen here and there about the rooms and corridors, but not one who could in any way compare with the fair Australian by my side—at least, not to my thinking. As we entered the long room at the top of the stairs, I thought it a good opportunity to ask the question I had been longing to put to her.