He strolled on, as if he owned the earth.
"That feller'll be as rich as the devil some day, if he keeps on," said one of the group.
That was the mild form of opprobrium that followed Artful Dick into the shadows. As he passed by the Braddocks and David, he doffed his derby gallantly. To this knowing chap there was something significant in the dreary, half-hearted smile that the mother and daughter gave him. At any rate, he took a second look at them out of the corner of his eye.
"Brad's up to something," he thought.
The smile he bestowed upon Ruby Noakes, who stood near by with several of the women, was all-enveloping. Ruby's dark eyes looked after him until his long, jaunty figure disappeared in the darkness.
"Too bad he's a thie—what he is," ventured the Iron-jawed Woman pityingly. She addressed the reflection to Ruby, who started and then positively glared at the speaker.
David escorted Mrs. Braddock and Christine to the hotel, where he also was to "put up" under the new dispensation. They had but little to say to each other. A deep sense of restraint had fallen upon them. He understood and appreciated their lack of interest in anything but their own unexpressed thoughts. As for himself, he was sick at heart over the discovery he had made. Not for all the world would he have added to their unhappiness by voicing the thoughts that were uppermost in his mind, rioting there with an insistent clamor that almost deafened him.
Christine's father was a thief!
From time to time, as they walked down the dark, still street, he glanced at her face, half fearing that his thoughts might have reached her by means of some mysterious telepathic agency. Even in the shadows her face was adorable. He could not see her dark eyes, but he knew they were troubled and afraid. He would have given worlds to have taken her in his arms, then and there, to pour into her little sore heart all the comfort of his new-found adoration.
For days it had been growing upon him, this delicious realization of what she had come to stand for in his life. She had crept into his heart and he was glad. Innate gallantry and a sense of the fitness of things had kept him from uttering one word of love to this young, trusting, unconscious girl. He was very young—stupidly young, he felt—but he was old enough to know that she would not understand. He was content to wait, content to watch. The time would come when he could tell her of the love that was in his heart; but it was not to be thought of now.