To her surprise and to her shame, also, he neither resented her sharp speech nor her reply to his money question. Leaning forward, his blue eyes took on an earnestness which effectually dispelled all notion of vanity in their possessor, demanding:
"C-c-c-could you do it? C-c-can you? W-w-w-wi-will you?"
"Yes, I might, could, would, and should—if you'd go find my brass bound box!"
"Cross your heart, honest Injun, h-h-hope to d-d-die?"
"No. Neither one. Just plain 'Yes.' I know a way. I've read all about it in the Cyclopedia in the big bookcase. I hunted it up right away, that first day after the first night when I—I mocked you. I made up my mind then, and I never unmake minds, that if you'd be decent I'd cure you. It's nothing but a dreadful bad habit, anyway, and easy done. But not until you find my—the—Aunt Eunice's brass bound box."
He was gone and back in a flash.
Katharine, starting to follow, paused in the middle of the floor, arrested by the sight of him standing in one doorway with the glittering casket in his hands, and of Miss Maitland in another staring at that which he held as if she saw a ghost.