"Your time is pretty full—evenings, too. Do you know where Charlie was last night?"
"I don't care."
"You ought. He's your second cousin, and goes by the same name as you, if you're not in love with him. He was in Halloran's billiard hall."
"If he can't keep himself out of the gutter, I can't keep him out," stated Miss Brady logically.
"Well, don't push him in," her cousin advised, but the light of battle had died out of his eyes, leaving them listless. "It's nothing to me. I only came to bring you this."
He produced something from an inner pocket and tossed it on the counter, something wrapped in a twist of newspaper, which parted as the girl bent eagerly over it, something which shone and twinkled alluringly, as she straightened it out with caressing fingers and held it up to the light—a little necklace of rather ornate design and startling colours, crimson stones and green and blue, the gayest of toys.
"Seems to be yours all right."
His cousin, who seemed to have forgotten his existence for one rapt moment, remembered it with a start. "Did you show this to your mother?" she asked sharply.
"Why?"
"Well, she don't like to have me spend my money on imitation jewellery." Miss Brady delivered this very natural explanation haltingly.