“You are a very imprudent person,” said Luella, smiling, yet with a most charming trace of anxiety under the smile.
“What have I been doing now?” I asked.
“That is what you are to tell me. Papa told us a little about your saving his life and his plans this morning, but he was so very short about it. Let me know the whole story from your own mouth. Was this the arm that was hurt?”
I started to give a brief description of my morning's adventure, but there was something in my listener's face that called forth detail after detail, and her eyes kindled as I told the tale of the battle that won Omega in the stock Board, and the fight that rescued the fruits of victory in the office of the company.
“There is something fine in it, after all,” she said when I was through. “There is something left of the spirit of the old adventurers and the knights. Oh, I wish I were a man! No, I don't either. I'd rather be the daughter of a man—a real man—and I know I am that.”
I thought of the Doddridge Knapp that she did not know, and a pang of pity and sorrow wrenched my heart.
She saw the look, and misinterpreted it.
“You do not think, do you,” she said softly, “that I don't appreciate your part in it? Indeed I do.” I took her hand, and she let it lie a moment before she drew it away.
“I think I am more than repaid,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” said she, changing her tone to one of complete indifference. “Papa said he had made you a director.”