The boy grins and says the paper will do him, so Wycherley makes some notes from it.
“Haven’t time to figure, now. May be a difference of a hundred thousand or so either way, but that doesn’t matter. There’s that woman’s face before my mind again. Where have I seen her? Stupid in me to forget asking her name when I gave mine. Well, let it pass—a memory like many others in a checkered career. Ah! done, boy? Thanks. I’ll leave you the paper and call again.”
It is just twelve when Wycherley turns up at the hotel, and finds Aleck awaiting him. No one would think the jolly actor had not eaten a bite since the previous night. He has great command over his system, and although the aroma of the soup almost overcomes him he restrains his fierce ardor. Above all it is his aim to act the gentleman.
“I see you’ve been up to your old tricks again, Claude,” says the Canadian kindly, as he looks into the face of the adventurer.
“What d’ye mean, my dear boy. Surely four o’clock was too late for a morning paper.”
“I had the whole thing from the lips of a party who was an eye-witness—who heard you give your name to the poor woman you rescued.”
“The deuce you say. I hoped it wouldn’t get out.”
“And I’m proud to know you, to be your friend, Claude Wycherley. More than that, you builded better than you knew, comrade.”
“How now, Aleck?”
“This gentleman took the woman you saved to a boarding-house near by. I confess something of curiosity, and a desire to hear her story direct, led my steps there after breakfast. Then again I had an idea she might be poor and needy, and, if so, I might second your deed. At any rate, I walked down and found her. She glowed with enthusiasm over your kindness, and described the whole scene so eloquently that I could, in imagination, see you hanging from that roof with one arm and supporting her—you who professed to be all in a tremble at the prospect of climbing the Ferris wheel. I can understand that now, my dear fellow, and know full well it was not timidity that kept you back, but the sturdy desire to baffle Aroun Scutari in the climax of his work.