Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/516

 "Look here!" he said. "Give me that!" He took from her the envelope she held loosely in her long fingers, and from the table a little bag of meshed gold and platinum that lay beside her glove. "Here!" He opened the bag, put the envelope within it and snapped the clasp shut. Then he thrust the glove and the bag both into her hands. "There!" he said, beaming upon her. "You take that, and get your young son down to the ticket-office as quick as you can to-morrow morning. And then, for heaven's sake, get out o' here!"

This enthusiasm startled her; and again her remarkable eyelashes fluttered. "You want me not to see you again—at all—until you come to Paris?"

"Well, I should say I did!" he said. "I don't want to be walked on with spiked shoes all the rest o' my life just because it happens you're the finest lookin' woman in the world! That's the trouble: if you were a little homelier, I guess I could make out to see more of you; but the way it is—why, you're about eight-hundred per cent. too good-lookin', Mrs. Mummero!" And with that, beaming upon her more cordially than ever, he lifted his large right hand and brought it down with a hearty and