“That’s because he can’t forget the girl who threw him over,” exclaimed Miss Rivers. “How awfully romantic! I wonder who she was? She couldn’t have been anybody nice, or she wouldn’t have done it, because he’s a regular dear. And fancy his remembering her all this time! I just love him for it.”
“Some fellows,” remarked Fairfax judiciously, “would get jealous if the girl they were going to marry talked about another man this way.”
Miss Rivers reassured him first practically, and then in words. “You goose!” said she; “if I cared for him in that way, don’t you see, I shouldn’t have spoken about him to you at all.”
Fairfax did not answer directly. He kissed her thoughtfully, and after a while he said: “I’m not superstitious, dear, as a general thing. Work in a shipping office tends to make one painfully matter of fact. But for all that, I wish this fellow Onslow would either marry or get crumpled up in a cab accident, or have himself safely fastened down out of harm’s way somewhere. I’ve got a foreboding, Amy, that he’s going to do a bad turn either to you or to me—which means both of us. I know it’s absurd, but I can’t get rid of it.”
“How creepy!” said Amy Rivers. “But what nonsense, Hamilton!”
CHAPTER II
A FORTUNE FOR THE PAIR OF US.
Mr. Theodore Shelf’s carriage and pair drew up at the smartest house in Park Lane, and Mr. Theodore Shelf went up the steps and entered the door which a man servant opened for him. He was a stout, middle-aged man, with a clean-shaven face, and a short frock-coat of black broadcloth. He allowed himself to be eased of his hat and umbrella, and then passed through the gorgeous hall to the rosewood billiard-room at the back. There he found his guest, Mr. Patrick Onslow, in shirt-sleeves, practising fancy shots by himself.
“What, alone, Mr. Onslow?”
“Why, yes. I did have a hundred up with your niece earlier, but some one came for her.”