"Well, Blindbeck luck still holds, anyway!" Jim smiled. "See here!" He put his hand in the great-coat that seemed to hide from her that he was a creature of flesh and blood, and instantly she heard the rustle of notes. He opened the big pocket-book under the light, running his hand over the clean slips with joyous pride. "Don't that talk?" he said cheerfully. "Doesn't it sure talk?" and in spite of her resolve she shrank from the crisp, unaccustomed sound.
"Good enough, eh?" he demanded warmly,--"and there's plenty more behind! That's only to pass the time o' day with, so to speak. Guess it'll do for a fairing for my old mother, that's about all." He snapped the elastic again and flung the book on the table, so that it slid across within Sarah's reach. Lifting his eyes he met her gaze fixed blindly upon his face, and his brow contracted as he puzzled over that hard, unrecognising stare.
"Can't we sit down for a spell?" he asked her coaxingly, turning back to the hearth. "I feel real unwanted, standing on my hind legs."
"Eliza'll be waiting on you," Sarah said, through a stiff throat.
"She's waited twenty years." He laid a hand on a chair, and pulled it nearer to the warmth. It protested violently when it felt his weight, but he settled himself snugly, and did not care. The fire, as if heartened at sight of him on the hearth, changed its cold yellow for a crimson glow.
"It's good to be home," he said happily,--"good as a Sunday-school, treat,--sure!" He pulled his pipe from his pocket, and began to fill it meditatively, with quiet hands.... "Now, if it had been Geordie that had struck it rich, it would have been a real hum for you, wouldn't it, old woman? Guess I feel real mean, for your sake, that it's only me. Guess I could almost wish it was Geordie out and out!"
He leaned forward with the firelight on his face, looking at her with the same smile that was like a hand that he reached out.
"He was always making a song," he said, "about what he'd do when he struck it rich. 'I'll be off home that slick you'll hear the bump,' he used to say, 'and I'll be planning all the way how I'll burn the cash!' I'd like to buy the farm for the old dad;--guess Squire'd part all right if I could pass him enough. As for the old woman, there's just no end to what I'd do,--glad rags and brooches, and help all round the house. It'd be just Heaven and Witham Gala, playing Providence to the old woman! ... That's what I want my brass for, when I strike it rich!'"
"A fool's dream!" Sarah said.
"A fine fool's dream."