“Shall you return, my dear, to-night?”
“It is not likely, but you shall certainly hear from me to-morrow. Good night, dear, kind friend,” and with a word of direction to the chauffeur she was gone.
While Mrs. Doyle was wondering over Jessie’s sudden departure, there came a hasty knock on the door, and when she opened it there stood that black sheep of a stepson of hers that she had not seen for two years—the redoubtable Carey Doyle.
Slouching carelessly in, and falling into a seat, he said amiably:
“How-do, old lady?”
“Well, Carey, this is certainly a day of surprises, and you’re the second one that has turned up to-day that I hadn’t seen for two years!” ejaculated the old lady, in the pleased surprise of one that leads a quiet, lonely life when confronted with old friends.
“But where have you been all this time? Never coming near your poor old stepma for two years?” she added reproachfully.
“Has it been so long? By Jove, I didn’t think it! But I’ve been hard down to business, and though I thought of coming often, still I couldn’t spare the time. But you’ve been getting on all right, have you?”
“Yes, I’ve scratched along and kept body and soul together,” she replied, prudently making the worst of her situation, lest he had come to borrow money, a shrewd suspicion, for his face fell as he exclaimed:
“Then you haven’t a hundred dollars or so you could lend a fellow to help him off to the Klondyke?”