"You mean you didn't know that I was all that that critic chap says I am? Well, I'm not. He's just gotten into the amiable habit of saying kind things in his old age—so that he can get into Heaven when he dies, in spite of all the damage he did in his youth. Come along—unless you want to look about you some more."
"I'll be ready in a moment," said Nancy, slipping off the stool. "I—there's something being wrapped for me that I want to get." With that she went off to the back of the store and had the little volume tied up, and paid for it with the last cent in her pocketbook. Then she returned.
"All right now? Here is your money." He took a fat envelope out of his pocket and gave it to her, and they left the shop.
As they walked across to Fifth Avenue, he explained to her rather vaguely the proceeding by which he had raised the money for her; but while she quite failed to understand it all she rested upon her faith in his superior intelligence in business matters.
"When I want to get the ring back again, what do I do? and don't I have to pay interest?"
"Oh, no, you don't have to pay interest, that's the wonderful part of it. And when you want it back, you just tell me. I'll have to get it for you, but you won't mind that, will you?"
"Oh, no—oh, you have been so kind, Mr. Arnold, I mean, G-George. Only you won't say anything to Uncle Thomas—of course you won't, but I'm just mentioning that."
"I won't breathe a word to any living thing on land or sea. This is our own private conspiracy, and no one shall have any part in it," he assured her, gaily. "Only please promise me that, if you should need any help again, you'll ask me. I—it disturbed me very much to find you at old Zeigler's, though of course it was my good fortune."
There was an abundance of time before Nancy's train left, so they strolled at an easy pace down Fifth Avenue, stopping to look in at the shop windows whenever they saw anything that caught their fancy, and chatting together as if they had known each other all their lives. At the corner of Forty-fourth Street, Mr. Arnold suddenly dove into a huge florist's shop on the corner, and in a moment returned bearing a bunch of Parma violets, tied with a silken cord and tassel.
"I say, will you wear these?" he asked, bluntly. "You know, I always wanted to give a bouquet to a young lady, but I never could find the young lady to whom I wanted to give them. The flowers were plentiful, but I began to think that the lady didn't exist." Nancy colored at the compliment with which he proffered her the flowers, and dimpled as only a rosy girl can dimple. His attentions were very flattering, and his half-shy, boyish manner made them doubly so.