The next instant he leaped to his feet.
"Fate!" he shrieked. "Fate! I told you my luck was in!" He turned to his wife breathlessly. "'Member those Premium Bonds you wanted me to go in for? Over a month ago I applied for twenty-five. I'd forgotten about the trash—and here they are!"
* * * * *
Two hours and a half had gone by, and we were rounding a tremendous horse-shoe bend on the way to Zarauz, when my wife touched Berry upon the arm.
"Aren't you excited?" she said.
"Just a trifle," he answered. "But I'm trying to tread it under. It's essential that I should keep cool. When you're arm in arm with Fortune, you're apt to lose your head. And then you're done. The jade'll give me my cues—I'm sure of it. But she won't shout them. I've got to keep my eyes skinned and my ears pricked, if I'm going to pick them up."
"If I," said Adèle, "were in your shoes, I should be just gibbering."
It was, indeed, a queer business.
The dramatic appearance of the funds had startled us all. Had they arrived earlier, had they come in the shape of something less easily negotiable than Bearer Bonds, had they been representing more or less than precisely the very sum which Berry had named in his appeal, we might have labelled the matter "Coincidence," and thought no more of it. Such a label, however, refused to stick. The affair ranked with thunder out of a cloudless sky.
As for my sister, with the wind taken out of her sails, she had hauled down her flag. The thing was too hard for her.