“But he is in a hurry, and in some great trouble, madame. You could read it in his face and his voice, so strained and tremulous, poor fellow!” cried Jessie warmly.
Madame laughed heartlessly:
“Oh, I know the type! Jealous young fool, just had a quarrel with his sweetheart and wants to find out if she will ever make it up with him! Let him wait. Suspense will cool his temper. Meantime, I must have ten minutes to finish this thrilling chapter! Go!” turning eagerly to her book again.
The girl hurried back to the caller, who was pacing impatiently up and down the room just as she had left him.
“Madame Barto will be at leisure in ten minutes,” she said gently, sitting down to her work again, while the young fellow went to the window and drummed a restless tattoo on the pane.
Jessie’s fingers had grown suddenly tremulous, and the color flushed up in her young face, for through her drooping lids she felt him gazing at her with suddenly aroused attention.
And one looking once at Jessie Lyndon could not help looking twice.
Of that rarest, most exquisite type, a dark-eyed blonde, she was possessed of most alluring beauty that not even want and poverty had sufficed to dim.
A little above medium height, slight and graceful, with perfect features, an oval face, a skin as delicate as a rose leaf, pouting, crimson lips, large, dark, haunting eyes, and a mass of curling golden hair, she would enchant any lover of beauty.
The young man, after watching her in blended admiration and curiosity several minutes, suddenly exclaimed: