“You’ve given me ‘tips,’ as you call them, too,” she said soberly. “Do
you want to know what I’ve done with ’em? I jus’ hated to take money
from you; but I didn’t know what else t’ do; so I——”
“Well, what did you do with the munificent sums I’ve bestowed on you
from time to time?” inquired David good-humoredly. “I’d really like to
know.”
The girl had finished her ice cream, leathery receptacle and all. She
began pulling on her white cotton gloves.
“Let’s go outside, where Gus can’t see us, an’ I’ll show you,” she
whispered.
“We’ll go up to the grand stand,” David proposed. “One of my horses
is going to race,” he added magnificently, “and you shall bet on him.
Would you like to? I’ll pay, of course, if you lose.”
“Isn’t betting kind o’ wicked?” asked the girl innocently. “The
Meth’dist minister said it was. Me an’ Gus went t’ church an’ heard a
sermon las’ Sunday night.”
“Nothing would be wicked for you,” decided David, “except to throw
yourself away on that greasy little cad, Bamber. Promise me you won’t,
Jennie. You’re about ten times too pretty and good for such a chap.”
“I told you I wasn’t goin’ t’ marry him b’fore,” murmured the girl.
“I—I couldn’t.”
She pulled off her white cotton glove and spread her short-fingered,
blunt little hand for his inspection.
“There!” she whispered. “I didn’t never ’xpect you’d see it. But that’s
what I’ve bought with all the money you’ve give me for makin’ your
toast the way you like it an’ your coffee an’ all. I’m goin’ t’ keep it
always, t’ remember you by.”
David glanced carelessly at the pink little hand, with its
close-clipped, shallow nails and stubbed fingertips.
“Do you mean—that?” he asked, touching the trumpery little ring with
its circle of blue stones, which glittered speciously on the third
finger.
“Yes,” breathed the girl. “You—you ain’t—mad, are you? I—wanted
somethin’ t’ keep always, t’ put me in mind o’ you, when—I can’t do
things f’r you no more; I love t’ do things f’r you, an’ I don’t s’pose
I’ll always have the chance, after—after she——”
David felt a sudden moisture in his eyes. There was something touching,
lovely, pathetic about this innocent, unasking love. He felt a little
proud of his own understanding of it. Almost unavoidably, too, there
came to his remembrance Barbara’s proud refusal to wear the costly ring
he had urged upon her acceptance.
“I am not angry, dear little girl,” he said gently, “But I wish the
keepsake was better, more worth while.”
“One of the stones did come out,” confessed the girl; “but I had it put
back in, ’n’ I’m only goin’ t’ wear it f’r best.”
David’s hand was fumbling in his pocket.
“I bought a ring for—a certain young lady,” he said bitterly, “and she
didn’t like it—or me—well enough to wear it. I wonder what you’d think
of a ring like that?”
He thrust the white velvet case into her hands with a carelessly
magnificent gesture of disdain.
“Do you mean for me to—to look at it?” asked the girl uncertainly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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