“Why should it arise? O, Mark, don’t mean me any evil!”
He sighed, shrugging his shoulders. The crawling cab drew up with a jerk.
“Now,” he said quickly, taking the girl’s burden from her, “stop here till I return with it. I shall be back before you can count a hundred.”
III
Mother Carey raised her bleary face with a start, and looked round. The owner of the name she had been apostrophising stood in the room beside her. She twisted an involuntary little shriek into a titter.
“Well, I’m sure,” she said, “to take me like that, in a moment, and anything possible! Was the door ajar?”
“Still ajar,” said Mark, with a smile—“and the trap still baited as of old, I suppose?”
“Always the same quick gentleman,” she chuckled venomously. “What has my lovey got in his arms there?”
“Something for your discounting, old mother,” he said. “I’ll show you in a minute.”
“My discounting!” she echoed. Her lips tightened on the word. She looked at him evilly—searchingly. “What do you mean? You got my message?”