"Arts and tricks!" said Sally scornfully.
"Just an innocent and appealing manner," smiled the Nun. "At any rate, this very afternoon I write to Mr. Rock. He'll produce three thousand pounds, Gilly will get a good partner, Andy Hayes can stay in England, I shall feel I've done a sensible thing. All that just by a letter!" A thought struck her. "I may as well write it here." She called a waiter and asked for notepaper and the A B C railway guide. "Don't wait for me, Sally. This letter will take some time to write."
"Not going to take it down yourself, are you?" asked Sally, pointing to the A B C.
"Oh no. Messenger boy. With any luck, it'll get there before Andy Hayes does. Rather fun if Jack Rock plays up to me properly!"—and she allowed herself the second gurgle of the afternoon.
Sally stood looking at her with an apparently unwilling smile. She loved her better than anybody in the world, and would have died for her at that or any other moment; but nothing of that sort was ever said between them. They were almost unsentimental enough to please Mark Wellgood himself. Only the Nun did like her little plans to be appreciated. Sally gave her all she wanted—a sharp little bark of a laugh in answer to the gurgle—before she walked away. The Nun settled to her task in demure serenity, seeming (yet not being) entirely unconscious of the extreme slowness with which most of the young men passed her table as they went out.
Billy Foot had walked with Andy as far as the Temple and had reasoned with him. Yet Billy himself admitted that there was great difficulty in the case. Asked whether he himself would do what he advised, he was forced to admit that he would hesitate. Still he would not give up the idea; he would see Gilly about it; perhaps the payment could be "spread."
"It would have to be spread very thin before I could pay it," smiled Andy ruefully. He gave Billy Foot's hand a hearty squeeze when they parted. "It's so awfully good of you to be so interested—and of those nice girls too."
"Well, old chap, if we can help a pal!" said Billy with a laugh. "Besides, it's good business for Gilly too."
Andy went back to Dowgate Hill and climbed up to his attic. The staff reported no callers in his absence; the baleful cable lay still in possession of the table. But Andy refused to be depressed. His lunch had done him good. Steady and sober as his mind was, yet he was a little infected by the gay confidence that had reigned among his company. They seemed all so sure that something would turn up, that what they wanted would get itself done somehow. Spoilt children of fate, the brothers Foot and the Nun! Things they wanted had come easily to them; they expected them to come easily to their friends. The Nun in particular appeared to treat fortune absolutely as a slave; she was not even grateful; it was all too much a matter of course that things should happen in the way she wanted. He did not appreciate yet the way in which the Nun assisted the course of events sometimes.
Well, his reply to the cable must go. He took up the form and read "Passionately." It was significant of his changed mood—of what the atmosphere of the lunch-party had done for him—that he hesitated hardly more than one minute before he added the possibly fateful "Interjection," and sent off the despatch before he had time again to waver.