Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Novelists -- Fiction; Secretaries -- Fiction; Voyages and travels -- Fiction; West Indies -- Fiction
I told him, with some warmth (the thermometer stood at 85 in the room)
that I would like part of it in Hardshell Baptist and the rest in
African Methodist Episcopal, or any other old thing, but that I did want
it in a hurry. He might give me a draft that could be used in New York
for $100 of it, and the rest in sovereigns, in case he should decide, on
reflection, to give me anything at all. These remarks he met with a
vacant stare, but took from his desk, when he had again reached it, two
pieces of paper, which he filled with duplicate statements, after the
manner of his kind. Reading these over several times, to make sure he
had committed no error, he took them to another man (apparently a sort
of manager or director) who pretended, as long as he could, not to see
his subordinate or to guess that he wished to attract his attention.
Afraid, I suppose, to speak, the clerk finally coughed mildly behind his
hand, at which the manager glared at him fiercely, and reaching out for
the papers, studied them for a long time. When satisfied (though you
wouldn't have thought it to look at him) he wrote something on each and
the clerk returned to me.
If I should detail the manner in which that fellow tried to evade giving
me my money, now that he had a chance to do so, I fear I would not be
believed. It ended, however, in my being sent to a cashier and getting
what I wanted. Tired and hungry I returned to my carriage and was driven
back to the Marine Hotel with Marjorie.
"Here is your cash, or rather what can be used to get it," I said,
drawing a long breath and handing her the draft. "When you have written
your name on the back it will be good anywhere."
"I don't know how to show my gratitude," she answered, her face
flushing.
"Excuse me. You know very well, but you refuse," I replied. "Now, here
is something for you to think of. All the wicked things you do, the
cruelties you practice, are to be spread before the novel reading public
of America! That ought to soften your hard heart. You know 'All the
world loves a lover,' but there is no proverb to fit a thoroughly
heartless girl."
"I would like you much better if you would not say such things," she
pouted.
"You speak as if you did like me a little, even now," I responded.
"Like you!" she exclaimed. "That's just it. I like you ever and ever so
much. How can I help it, when you are so kind to me? I like you and I
want to continue to like you, Mr. Camran. I wish I could think you would
never learn to dislike me."
As I began an impassioned declaration that the day would never dawn, she
started violently and bit her lips till the teeth marks showed plainly.
In another instant I saw what had caused her mental disturbance; two men
were looking at us from a street car that was trying with some success
to reach the hill by the hotel before we did. Those men were Robert
Edgerly and Horace Wesson.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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