The Strange Adventures of Mr. John Smith in Paris/Chapter 17

R. SMITH was not the kind of man who would ask a woman if she would marry him—he’d tell her she was going to. He told Edna Clarke, between the soup and the fish, in a cozy little dining room off Montmartre—Aunt Emma was at home—the night before he was to leave Paris. They had been talking about the weather. He didn’t introduce the subject of matrimony; just spilled it out. There were exclamations of surprise, blushes, embarrassment, and protestations. Mr. Smith waved them aside in that masterful way of his.

“My train leaves in the morning about ten o’clock,” he said. “I’ll run by and see your father about nine. I’m not very strong with him, and I imagine he may—he may—”

That old troubled, haunted look dashed in the girl’s eyes for a second. There was still the possibility that all the desperate chances they had taken would come to naught, that open dishonor would come, that her father would be—

“I’m sorry, Miss Edna,” Mr. Smith said simply. “I didn’t mean to—er—everything is coming out all right. So long as none of it became public at the time of my arrest, and now I’m free, everything is all right. Nothing can go wrong.”

“Of course I know it,” she faltered; “but—but—the bare thought of it frightens me. I know, you’ve made me see that my father isn’t a—a thief, as I thought at first; but there is still a chance of discovery, and if it came—”

“It won’t come,” interrupted Mr. Smith. “Do you remember you once told me that you had more confidence in me than any person you ever met? Now prove it by believing me. There’s no earthly way by which the customs people in New York can find those bonds, and, as for the police of Paris, I’ve got them euchred to a standstill. Now that’s all over. Let’s not talk about it. As I said. I’ll see your father in the morning about nine, and then—”

Edna arched her brows disdainfully. “It’s perfectly absurd!” she declared irrelevantly. “Such a result of our chance meeting never occurred to me. I’d never even thought of it.”

“Oh, well, you’ll have lots of time to think of it before you get back home,” Mr. Smith informed her easily. “After that—”

“But we hardly know each other—just a couple of weeks! Think of it!”

“Two weeks and three days,” Mr. Smith amended. “I may say. without boasting, that we’ve known each other pretty well during that time.”

DNA recalled that instant when she had returned to consciousness to find herself being carried, as a child, in the powerful arms of this man, and the memory brought roses to her cheeks. Her clear blue eyes flickered for an instant, then grew suddenly grave. “It’s been splendid of you, Mr. Smith, all of it,” she said at last, seriously. “You have tried to make it appear that it was all done for your own sake; but—but somehow I don’t quite believe it. I believe yet there was something deeper behind what you’ve done. I believe—” She paused. “You were very fond of my father once, weren’t you?”

“He made me what I am. I am grateful, yes.”

“But something more than that?” she insisted. “I know from the way he speaks of you that—”

Mr. Smith laid two hands upon her own. “Never mind all that,” he said quietly. “You seem to think I have done something wonderful. It is within your power to repay me. Will you?”

Edna didn’t move her hand; merely faced him without a word. If there had been any doubt in his mind it was dissipated by the misty light that grew in her eyes, by the happy curl of her lips.

“Once I promised to repay you, if it was ever within my power,” she said gently.

“Then I may see your father in the morning before I go?”

After a long time the girl nodded. One of her hands still lay a prisoner beneath his own.

“Isn’t it wonderful,” she said dreamily after a moment, “how our lives have become so entangled, each with the other? Almost from the first I saw you aboard ship I knew it would lie so. I don’t know why—I only knew. I understood, too, perfectly, what I must do, and I made my father do it.”

“Those handcuffs! You know that reminds me of something I want to do before I leave Paris. I want to look up the Marquis and slap all the wrinkles out of his face. I think that’s legal.”

“No!” exclaimed the girl, alarmed. “There’s too much at stake. It might mean arrest again, and—”

“I’m not going to do it,” Mr. Smith assured her. “It took your father and a half dozen of his banker friends and the American Ambassador to get me loose last time. When they found there were no bonds, they wanted to hold me for smashing Remi in the nose.” He paused. “I wouldn’t take chances again. These detectives in Paris would like a reasonable excuse to send me up for about a hundred years.”

ROM the mottled front of the Gare du Nord, in the growing gloom of dusk, Mr. Smith took his last look at Paris, the wonder city of the world; truly a wonder city, for was not Edna Clarke there, Edna Clarke, whose promise, sanctioned by her father, he held? For a long time he stood meditatively, then:

“I love my Paris,” he said slowly; “but oh, you Passaic!”