“Say,” was the admiring reply. “You’re a partner worth having. You’ve got a _head_.”
Such praise was the sweetest incense to Georgina. She burned to call forth more.
“Oh, I can think of lots of things when once I get started,” she assured him with a grand air.
As they ran along Richard glanced several times at the head from which had come such valuable suggestions. There was a gleam of gold in the brown curls which bobbed over her shoulders. He liked it. He hadn’t noticed before that her hair was pretty.
There was a gleam of gold, also, in the thoughts of each. They could fairly see the nuggets they were soon to unearth, and their imaginations, each fired by the other, shoveled out the coin which the picture show was to yield them, in the same way that the fisherman had shoveled the shining mackerel into the boat. They had not attempted to count them, simply measured them by the barrelful.
“Don’t tell anybody,” Richard counseled her as they parted at the Green Stairs. “Cross your heart and body you won’t tell a soul. We want to surprise ’em.”
Georgina gave the required sign and promise, as gravely as if it were an oath.
From the front porch Richard’s father and cousin, James Milford, watched him climb slowly up the Green Stairs.
“Dicky looks as if the affairs of the nation were on his shoulders,” observed Cousin James. “Pity he doesn’t realize these are his care-free days.”
“They’re not,” answered the elder Richard. “They’re the most deadly serious ones he’ll ever have. I don’t know what he’s got on his mind now, but whatever it is I’ll wager it is more important business than that deal you’re trying to pull off with the Cold Storage people.”