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restaurant and see if we can't get that table that I used to eat at when
you waited on me?" They both laughed.
"If old Feinheimer sees me he will have me poisoned," said Jimmy.
"Not if you have any money to spend in his place."
It was eleven thirty when they reached Feinheimer's. The table they
wanted was vacant, a little table in a corner of the room and furthest
from the orchestra. The waiter, a new man, did not know them, and
no one
had recognized them as they entered.
Jimmy sat looking at the girl's profile as she studied the menu-card.
She was very pretty. He had always thought her that, but somehow
to-night she seemed to be different, even more beautiful than in the
past. He wished that he could forget what she had been. And he
realized
as he looked at her sweet girlish face upon which vice had left no
slightest impression to mark her familiarity with vice, that it might be
easy to forget her past. And then between him and the face of the girl
before him arose the vision of another face, the face of the girl that
he had set upon a pedestal and worshiped from afar. And with the
recollection of her came a realization of the real cause of his sorrow
and depression earlier in the evening.
He had attributed it to the unpleasant knowledge he had been forced
to
partially impart to her father and also in some measure to the
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regrettable interview he had had with her, but now he knew that these
were only contributory causes, that the real reason was that during
the
months she had occupied his thoughts and in the few meetings he had
had
with her there had developed within him, unknown to himself, a
sentiment
for her that could be described by but one word--love.
Always, though he had realized that she was unattainable, there must
have lingered within his breast a faint spark of hope that somehow,
some
time, there would be a chance, but after to-night he knew there could
never be a chance. She had openly confessed her contempt for him,
and
how would she feel later when she realized that through his efforts
her
happiness was to be wrecked, and the man she loved and was to
marry
branded as a criminal?
CHAPTER XXII.
A LETTER FROM MURRAY.
The girl opposite him looked up from the card before her. The lines of
her face were softened by the suggestion of a contented smile. "My
gracious!" she exclaimed. "What's the matter now? You look as
though you
had lost your last friend."
Jimmy quickly forced a smile to his lips. "On the contrary," he said,
"I think I've found a regular friend--in you."
It was easy to see that his words pleased her.
"No," continued Jimmy; "I was thinking of what an awful mess I make
of
everything I tackle."
"You're not making any mess of this new job," she said. "You're
making
good. You see, my hunch was all right."
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"I wish you hadn't had your hunch," he said with a smile. "It's going
to bring a lot of trouble to several people, but now that I'm in it I'm
going to stick to it to a finish."
The girl's eyes were wandering around the room, taking in the faces of
the diners about them. Suddenly she extended her hand and laid it on
Jimmy's.
"For the love of Mike." she exclaimed. "Look over there."
Slowly Jimmy turned his eyes in the direction she indicated.
"What do you know about that?" he ejaculated. "Steve Murray and
Bince!"
"And thick as thieves," said the girl.
"Naturally," commented Jimmy.
The two men left the restaurant before Edith and Jimmy had finished
their supper, leaving the two hazarding various guesses as to the
reason
for their meeting.
"You can bet it's for no good," said the girl. "I've known Murray for a
long while, and I never knew him to do a decent thing in his life."
Their supper over, they walked to Clark Street and took a northbound
car, but after alighting Jimmy walked with the girl to the entrance of
her apartment.
"I can't thank you enough," he said, "for giving me this evening. It is
the only evening I have enjoyed since I struck this town last July."
He unlocked the outer door for her and was holding it open.
"It is I who ought to thank you," she said. Her voice was very low and
filled with suppressed feeling. "I ought to thank you, for this has been
the happiest evening of my life," and as though she could not trust
herself to say more, she entered the hallway and closed the door
between
them.
As Jimmy turned away to retrace his steps to the car-line he found his
mind suddenly in a whirl of jumbled emotions, for he was not so
stupid
as to have failed to grasp something of the significance of the girl's
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words and manner.
"Hell!" he muttered. "Look what I've done now!"
The girl hurried to her room and turned on the lights, and again she
seated herself before her mirror, and for a moment sat staring at the
countenance reflected before her. She saw lips parted to rapid
breathing, lips that curved sweetly in a happy smile, and then as she
sat there looking she saw the expression of the face before her
change.
The lips ceased to smile, the soft, brown eyes went wide and staring as
though in sudden horror. For a moment she sat thus and then,
throwing
her body forward upon her dressing-table, she buried her face in her
arms.
"My God!" she cried through choking sobs.
Mason Compton was at his office the next morning, contrary to the
pleas
of his daughter and the orders of his physician. Bince was feeling
more
cheerful. Murray had assured him that there was a way out. He would
not
tell Bince what the way was.
"Just leave it to me," he said. "The less you know, the better off
you'll be. What you want is to get rid of this fresh guy and have all
the papers in a certain vault destroyed. You see to it that only the
papers you want destroyed are in that vault, and I'll do the rest."
All of which relieved Mr. Harold Bince's elastic conscience of any
feeling of responsibility in the matter. Whatever Murray did was no
business of his. He was glad that Murray hadn't told him.
He greeted Jimmy Torrance almost affably, but he lost something of
his
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