Page:The Van Roon (IA thevanroon00snaiiala).pdf/227

 it! Something pretty bad must have happened to her quite recently. But why had she come to him?

Thoughts of the picture set his active mind to work. She had come to him because she was in want of money. So much, at least, was clear. To judge by the look of her, she had probably, at a moment's notice, been turned out of house and home. A domestic servant, no doubt, and no better than she should be, although a certain taste about her much-rumpled clothes and an attempt at refinement of manner suggested the wish to rise above her class.

In the midst of this quick mind process, Adolph Keller saw the brown paper parcel. It was in the place where his visitor had laid it when she had first sat down. He noticed that she had cunningly reared it by the farther side of her chair, so that it might be beyond the immediate range of his eye.

Keller's pulse quickened, yet he allowed no hint of his intriguing discovery to shew in his manner. Once again it changed towards his guest. The tone of sharp authority vanished. Twisting a dark moustache round strong, yet delicate fingers, his air of extreme gentlemanliness verged upon the sugary, as he said: "I don't like to see you like this. I don't really."

The tone's unexpectedness, perhaps even more than its kindness, moved June to further tears.

"You had better tell me, hadn't you, just what's upset you?"

She shook miserably. And then, thrown off her guard, by this new note of concern, she found the courage to venture again: "Please lend me a sovereign and let me go. I promise solemnly to pay it back."

He smiled in a way obviously to reassure. "What's