"'HOW DO YOU SUPPOSE I FEEL, BEING IN THIS POSITION—TO YOU?'"
Suddenly he had changed his position. He was beside her on the ground, facing her, staring her out of countenance.
"We may as well get the clear of this right now——"
"It is needlessly clear to me, Mr. Hammond."
"But not to me. In the first place——"
"I will not trouble you——"
"It is no trouble. In the first place, has that fellow followed you, spoken to you before?"
"Never—never like that."
She wondered whether he had noticed her unsuccessful effort to rise and put an end to the interview.
"Do you know who he is?"
"He is the junior member of the firm I work for."
"What! Well, I am glad I smashed him." Then he added quickly, "This, of course, puts an end to your going there, at once. You've been at it too long anyway. It's stopped being a joke, and as a pose——"
"'Pose.'"
The intonation was subtle. A moment's bewilderment, and he burst out, "You're not doing this because you—have to?"
"That—or something."
"But—but—Good Lord, child! Where is your money?"
With pomp and ceremony—but languidly withal, for her head was beginning to ache, and she wanted desperately to cry—she laid her purse in his hand. But she did not look at him.
The big hand closed over the flat little thing impatiently.
"I am referring to your bank account."
"And by what right——"
"We'll settle that later. The banks have opened up again——"
"That's all I have."
"But what has become—You're not going to faint?"
"No."
"Then what has become——"
Quite against her will she was beginning to find herself faintly amused. Of all pigheaded, impertinent people, this individual with whom she had hardly had more than five minutes' conversation, except at meal times during the past six weeks, was certainly the worst.
"I really must know, Miss Stanton, what has become——"
"I gave it away."
"You—gave it—away!" Italics could never do justice to his intonation. He was staring at her as though he considered her demented. "To whom?" came his indignant question.
After all, why not tell him? It was none of his business; and he was desperately impertinent; but she was desperately forlorn; and, though it could not better the situation to talk about it, it might better her feelings.
She slipped farther down against her rock; and he bent forward, listening intently.
"I gave it to—a relative. She was living with me at the time of the fire. We had only just come up from Los Angeles—because I wanted to—I had some property here; all my income came from it; and I felt I ought to know more about it—in case anything happened. And after the earthquake she acted as though I had led her up to the—jaws of death—and pushed her in—and later she was so afraid of typhoid—and everything. And so—at last, when the banks opened up again—I gave her all the money I had in the bank—and she went East right away—and I stayed here."
"With nothing?"
"I had fifty dollars. I was doing relief work at the Presidio, waiting for the vaults to cool off—I had a lot of paper money in a box there—and for the insurance companies to pay—and for the man who looked after my affairs to get well: he'd been hurt in the earthquake. But he didn't get well: he had a stroke, instead, and died. And his partner—they were lawyers—went away; all their books and papers and everything had been burnt up, and he didn't seem to think he could ever straighten things out; and when the vaults were opened, the paper money I had in the box was all dust—and the insurance companies haven't paid."
She shrugged her shoulders delicately over the situation, already disgusted with herself at having descended to disclosing her private affairs to a stranger.
Meanwhile, "So that's it," the stranger was saying. "I've wondered a lot."
"You needn't have troubled."
"No trouble," he blandly assured her. "Houghton always was an ass"—(Houghton was the younger lawyer. How had he known? the girl wondered)—"lighting out for Goldfield when he ought to be here, straightening out his clients' business. And so you went to work on some beggarly salary, instead of seeing about having your property put in shape again. Why didn't you lease, or——"
"I couldn't find out where it was," she retorted, furious. "I'd only been here a week when the fire came; and not for years before that."
——"and not put yourself in a position where you get insulted by some little scrub who isn't fit for you to walk on.—Are you going to faint?"
"No."
"Then what's the matter?" inquired the clod at her side.
"Nothing," she fibbed promptly. How different this creature was from Bixler McFay! Bixler had never pried into her private affairs, or evinced an interest in her possessions, or insisted on answers she did not wish to give, or pursued topics she did not care for. Bixler had none of the bluntness, the pigheadedness, the brutality of this—but then, there was no comparing the two. Only, she had vowed not to think of Bixler any more. He was not worth it.
"Nothing's the matter with me," she said. "Only, when I got back to the boarding-house after—after downtown to-day, the landlady said I'd have to pay sixty a month or leave at once, and—and she hadn't saved any lunch for me, and——"
"And you've been eating——"
He looked at the candy-bag and the morsel of bun with horror.
"I thought they'd cheer me up," Ikey murmured meekly, "but they've made me feel—kind of queer."
"That settles it." The big hand came down forcefully upon his knee. "We'll get the thickest steak you ever laid your eyes on in about two minutes. But first—we'll get married."
"What!"