“It was bully of you to stand by Nellie in her trouble!” said Drake with feeling. “I guess you came near getting pinched.”
“Oh, it was nothing,” remarked Burgess, shooting his cuffs with the air of a gentleman to whom a brush with the police is only part of the day’s work.
“Nellie told me about it, coming up in the machine. I guess you’re a good sport, all right.”
Webster G. Burgess was conscious of the ex-convict’s admiration; he was not only aware that Drake regarded him admiringly but he found that he was gratified by the approbation of this man who had cracked safes and served time for it.
“Nellie is a great girl!” said Burgess, to change the subject. “I believe you mean to be good to her. You’re a mighty lucky boy to have a girl like that ready to stand by you! Here’s some money Gordon asked me to give you. And here’s something for Nellie, a check—one thousand—Saxby will cash it for you at New Orleans. Please tell your wife tomorrow that it’s my wife’s little wedding gift, in token of Nellie’s kindness in keeping me out of jail. Now where’s that marriage license? Good! There’s a bishop in this house who will marry you; we’ll go down and pull it off in a jiffy. Then you can have a nibble of supper and we’ll take you to the station. There’s a train for the South at eight-twenty.”
Nellie was waiting in the hall when they went out. Nora had dressed her hair, and bestowed upon her a clean collar and a pair of white gloves. She had exchanged her shabby, wet tan shoes for a new pair Mrs. Burgess had imported from New York. The mud acquired in the scramble through the lumber-yard had been carefully scraped from her skirt. Voices were heard below.
“They’ve just come in from dinner,” said the maid, “Shall I tell Bridget to keep something for you?”
“Yes—something for three, to be on the table in fifteen minutes.”
Mrs. Webster G. Burgess always maintains that nothing her husband may do can shock her. When her husband had not appeared at seven she explained to her guest that he had been detained by an unexpected meeting of a clearing-house committee, it being no harder to lie to a bishop than to any one else when a long-suffering woman is driven to it. She was discussing with the Bishop of Shoshone the outrageously feeble support of missionaries in the foreign field when she heard steps on the broad stair that led down to the ample hall. A second later her husband appeared at the door with a young woman on his arm—a young woman who wore a hat with a red feather. This picture had hardly limned itself upon her acute intelligence before she saw, just behind her husband and the strange girl, a broad-shouldered young clergyman who bore himself quite as though accustomed to appearing unannounced in strange houses.