NANCY’S CURIOUS EXPERIENCE
Mr. Gordon’s eyes were brown. They were heavy-lidded so that Nancy could see very little of their expression. He was a smoothly-shaven man and his thick lips seemed grim.
“You—you are the girl?” demanded the lawyer.
“Yes—yes, sir,” she said. “I’m Nancy Nelson.”
“What are you doing here? Have you run away?” he shot at her, accentuating the query with a pointed forefinger.
Afterward she realized that that impaling index finger was a gesture of habit—it was his way of “spearing” witnesses in court when they were under fire.
“No, sir,” replied Nancy, with more confidence.
“How do you come here, then?”
“I am on my way to Clintondale.”
“Clintondale?”
“Pinewood Hall, you know. There—there is a four-hour wait here at Cincinnati, you know.”
“I did not know,” he rumbled forth. Then, like a flash, he demanded: “Who sent you here?”
This question took the last breath of wind out of Nancy’s sails. She had, through it all, believed that he might be glad to see her. But now she realized that the opposite was the truth.
“Nobody sent me,” she stammered.
“Not the woman at the other school—Miss—Miss Prentice?”
“No, sir. She does not know. I—I just wanted to see you.”
“What for?” he asked, in the same sudden, gruff way.
“I—I thought you might want to see me, too,” she hedged. “You—you know guardians usually do want to see their wards.”
“Ha! who told you that I was your guardian?”
“No—no one; but you are, sir?” she questioned, fearfully.
“No, Miss. I am not.”
“Then—then you only act for my guardian?”
He looked straight at her, and steadily, for several moments, without speaking. Nancy could learn nothing from his expression.
“I do not know that, legally speaking or otherwise, you have a guardian,” he finally said.
“But—but——”
“Money passes through my hands for your support and schooling. That is all I can tell you. I am not your guardian.”
“Oh, but surely!” cried the greatly perturbed girl, “you know something about me?”
“I know what your teachers have reported. They say you are fairly intelligent, remarkably healthy, and quite obedient.”
“Oh, sir!”
“I consider this a flagrant case of disobedience. Don’t let it happen again,” pursued Mr. Gordon, sternly.
“But, sir! I cannot help it,” cried poor Nancy, the tears now beginning to flow. “I feel sometimes as though I couldn’t live unless I learned something about myself—who I am—who my folks were—why I am being educated—who is paying for it, and all——”
“You would better smother your curiosity,” interrupted Mr. Gordon, the fat fingers of one hand playing a noiseless tattoo upon the edge of his desk. “I can tell you nothing.”
“You are forbidden to tell?” gasped the girl.
“I know nothing, therefore I cannot tell. You came to me anonymously—that is, your identity aside from the name you bear was unknown to me. The money which supports you comes to me anonymously.”
“Oh!” The girl’s real pain and disappointment were evident even to the case-hardened lawyer. He was silent while she sobbed with her eyes against her coat-sleeve. But no change of expression came into the face that, for long years, he had trained to hide emotion before juries and witnesses.
“I might have refused the task set me years ago when—when I introduced you into Miss Prentice’s school,” he said, at last. “I might have gone to the authorities and handed you over to them—money and all. To what end? I was assured that no further money would be devoted to your up-keep and education. You would then have had no better chance than that of any foundling in a public charitable institution. Not so nice; eh?”
“Oh!” exclaimed the girl again, looking at him now through her tears.
“So I accepted the responsibility—as I accept many responsibilities in the way of business. It is nothing personal to me. I am paid a certain sum for handling the money devoted to your support. That is all.”
The girl asked a strange question—strange for one so young, at least. The thought had stabbed her like a knife:
“What would you do if I should die? How would you tell those—those who send the money?”
If the lawyer hesitated it was but for a moment. And his huge face was a veritable mask.
“I should advertise in the personal column of a certain metropolitan newspaper—that is all,” he declared.
“Then—then I’m just nobody, after all?” sighed the girl, wiping her eyes.
“Why—why—I wouldn’t say that!” and for the first time a little human note came into Mr. Gordon’s voice, and his pink face seemed to become less grim.
“But that’s what I am—Miss Nobody from Nowhere. I had no friends at Higbee School because of it; I’ll have no standing at Pinewood Hall, either.”
“Nonsense! nonsense!” ejaculated Mr. Gordon, tapping his desk again.
“Girls who have homes—and folks—don’t want to associate with girls who come from nowhere and don’t know anything about themselves.”
“Well, well! That’s a thought that had never entered my mind,” said the lawyer, more to himself than to Nancy.
“You see how it is, sir. I thought there might be an estate, maybe. I thought maybe that, as so much money was being spent for me—I might be of some importance somewhere——”
“Ha!” exclaimed the lawyer, still staring at her.
“But now you say there’s nobody—and nothing. Just money comes—comes out of the air for me. And you pass it on. Oh, dear me! it’s very mysterious, sir.”
He said nothing, but still looked at her.
“And you’re not even my guardian! I hoped when I went to Pinewood and the girls began to get curious, I could talk about you,” confessed Nancy, plaintively. “I thought maybe, if you even weren’t married——”
“Ahem! I am not married,” said the lawyer, quickly.
“But, then, if you were truly my guardian, I might come and see you once—or you could come to the school and see me,” pursued the girl, wistfully. “But now—now there’s nothing—absolutely nothing.”
“Now there’s nothing,” repeated Mr. Gordon, uncompromisingly.
“And the girls at Pinewood Hall will be just like those at Higbee,” sighed Nancy.
“How’s that?” demanded Mr. Gordon.
“They won’t want to associate with me—much. Their mothers won’t let them invite me home. For I am a nobody. I heard one lady tell Miss Prentice once that one never knew what might happen if one allowed one’s girls to associate with girls who had no family. Of course not. I couldn’t blame ’em.”
“Ha!” ejaculated Mr. Gordon again.
“You see, my people might have been dreadful criminals—or something,” went on Nancy. “It might all come out some day,—and then nice people wouldn’t want their girls to have been associated with me.”
“Ha!” repeated the lawyer.
“You see how it is; don’t you?” explained Nancy, softly. “Miss Prentice would not let the girls write home about me. And when they learned last June that I was going to Pinewood they all thought my folks must really be rich. So that was all right.
“But I thought if I could see you, you would tell me all there was to know about myself—and my people; and that maybe I could talk about my guardian and make it all right with those new girls.”
“I’ve told you all I know,” said Mr. Gordon, almost sullenly, it seemed.
“Well, then, I—I guess I’ll be going,” said Nancy, faintly, and turning from the desk. “I—I’m sorry I bothered you, sir.”
“Where are you going?” demanded the lawyer.
“Why—why, to Clintondale, sir.”
“Ha! I’ll make sure that you get on the right train, at any rate,” he said, and pressed a button under the edge of his desk. “Have you had your luncheon?”
“No, sir. Not yet.”
He plucked a ten-dollar note out of his vest pocket and thrust it into her hand. “Get your luncheon.” The door opened and the red-headed boy looked in. “Pay for ‘Scorch’s’ luncheon, too.”
“Ye-es, sir,” said Nancy, faintly.
“Scorch!” commanded Mr. Gordon.
“Yessir!” snapped the office boy.
“It’s about your lunch hour?”
“Yessir!”
“Take—take Miss Nancy Nelson to Arrandale’s. Afterward take her to the station and put her aboard the right train for Clintondale. Understand?”
“Yessir!”
Mr. Gordon wheeled back to his desk. He did not even say good-bye to Nancy as Scorch held the door open for her to pass out.