Mr. Arnold hailed a taxi-cab, and they rolled off in state. Mr. Arnold had given the driver the address of a little French restaurant on West Forty-fifth Street.
"It'll be fairly empty now, and we can find just the table we want. I shall order your luncheon for you, because I know just exactly what things are peculiar to this place—their special tid-bits, and I feel like ordering a regular knock-out of a feast as a sort of celebration. Really, you've no idea how delighted I am to have discovered you." His frank, boyish pleasure in this freak of chance was so plainly written on his beaming face, that Nancy colored with a schoolgirl's naïve delight in such sincere flattery. The dreaded undertaking of her trip to the city was turning into a very charming little surprise party. In some way, she felt that she had known Mr. Arnold for a very long time, and that really there was not the slightest need for concealing anything from him. His odd, attractive face was so friendly, his bright brown eyes so full of eager sympathetic interest, that almost before she had given a second thought as to whether she should or she shouldn't, she had begun to tell him the reason for her appearance at the pawnbroker's.
They had found a little table in a corner of the restaurant, and Mr. Arnold had insisted upon ordering almost everything on the menu that attracted his fancy.
"And above all things, you must try the hot chocolate, Miss Prescott. I suppose it's not manly, but I have the most juvenile fondness for hot chocolate, with great big blobs of whipped cream."
So hot chocolate they had, and innumerable rolls, hot and fresh from the oven, and various and sundry other delicacies, calculated to cripple a weak digestion for a month at the very least.
Drawn out by her growing confidence in him, and by her craving to talk out her troubles to some one whose advice would be sound and based on genuine sympathy, Nancy told him about her necessity for getting some money. The explanation involved a good many complications, and Nancy was as a rule unusually reserved. But Mr. Arnold was one of those rather rare people who can understand a great deal more than is said in just so many words, and she did not have to go into details as to why, for example, she hesitated to ask her uncle for the money, or why it was impossible to write to her mother for it. She told him simply that there was a girl at school to whom her sister was indebted, and who had played Alma a very shabby trick; and that, therefore, she felt that it was absolutely imperative to clear Alma of the obligation to her. He listened attentively, interposing occasionally in the friendly tone such as an older man might use to a young one, so that she felt no embarrassment in making the whole affair clear to him. Nor did he seem to think that there was anything very awful in her trying to raise the money for herself with the ring as a security.
"Only you should have gotten someone's advice, Miss Prescott. A man like Zeigler would swindle you outrageously, and there are plenty of reputable places which make loans on jewelry as a security. How large is the debt?" Nancy told him.
"A hundred and ten dollars? You are unwilling to ask your uncle?" Then seeing a look of distress in her face, he went on hastily: "Well, I think I can understand. I admire your independence, Miss Prescott. I say," he asked suddenly, with a touch of shyness, "would you mind if I should call you Nancy? It sounds so much more friendly."
"I—-I'd like you to," replied Nancy, simply. "It makes me feel sort of old to be called Miss Prescott."
"Very well, and it makes me feel quite antique to be called Mr. Arnold. I wish you'd flatter me into believing myself young once more by calling me George."