The Lion's Mouse Read online

  II

  THE NET

  "You made no plan what to do if your friend didn't turn up?" Rogerenquired. "Have you any other friends in Chicago?"

  "Not one."

  "Have you ever lived here, or stayed here?"

  "No."

  If he had now been capable of suspecting her, all his first suspicionsof Miss Beverley White would have marshalled themselves in his brain.Nothing had happened during the whole journey to justify her fantasticstory of mysterious danger. As for the wonderful envelope, who couldtell that it didn't contain blank paper? But Sands had got beyond thisstage. If he were a fool, he asked to be nothing better.

  "Is that friend you talk of more than a friend?"

  "No, only a person I trusted for reasons I can't tell you."

  "I see. And you don't know what will become of you since he's failedyou, and you're turned adrift in a strange town?"

  "I don't know at all. I feel stunned--as if it didn't matter."

  "It does matter to a girl like you, left alone without friends in a bigcity where you're a stranger. Have you money?"

  "I had enough and more than enough for my journey here, enough to payyou back for all you've done. I expected to get more money, and to belooked after in Chicago. Perhaps I can find work."

  "Do you think after all that's passed I can go coolly on my way leavingyou alone in Chicago? I may be a fool, but I have another proposal tomake." He paused.

  She looked up as if startled.

  "What do you say to marrying me and going on to New York as my wife?"

  For a minute he thought she was going to faint. She seemed suddenly tobecome limp. She swayed a little on her feet, and he caught her arm.

  "You're tired out, standing so long," he exclaimed.

  "No, it's not that. Forgive me. It was almost too much, finding out theheight of your goodness. Yet, 'height' is the word!"

  "You'll marry me, then!" he cried.

  "No," the girl answered, "I thank you with my whole heart, but I can't."

  "Why ... why?" he stammered. "Unless you're married already."

  "I'm not married. No man has ever been anything to me. I swear that toyou! But I can't tell you any more about myself."

  Roger did not speak for a minute. At last he said:

  "See here, you and I have got to talk. We can't do that where we are,with people jostling us this way and that. There's one thing certain.However this ends, I'm not going to leave you alone in Chicago. We'vegot plenty of time. Will you let me take you to a quiet restaurant? Wecan thrash matters out across the table."

  "Very well," she agreed.

  Roger knew Chicago. When he had arranged to have his luggage put in safekeeping, he got a taxi and took the girl to a dull but good place, sureto be practically empty at that hour. They sat down at a table in acorner, and Sands ordered an oyster stew.

  "Do you dislike me?" he began his catechism. "Could you like me enoughto think of me as a husband, if we'd met in a conventional, society sortof way?"

  "Yes, I could. I do want you to know that. You've been so splendid tome."

  "So far so good, but I haven't been splendid. I've fallen in love withyou. I haven't been in love before ... that is, not since I was twenty.I've never had time...."

  "You haven't taken much time in doing it now!" She gave a queer littlelaugh with a sob in it.

  "I've learned the lesson that time isn't the thing needed. I want youmore than I ever wanted anything in my life, and I'll take you ... asyou stand."

  "You haven't stopped to think ... to count the cost," she said. "Imaginewhat it would be for a man like you to have a wife he knew nothingabout, just a single figure cut off its background, in a picture he'dnever seen. People would ask: 'Who was she?' and there'd be no answer."

  "They'd not ask me that," said Roger obstinately. "And I wouldn't carewhat they asked each other. I'm not a society man, though I might enjoyputting my wife on the top floor. And I can do that with you if Ichoose! You say I'm a man of importance. I'm important enough anyhow totake the wife I want, and to put her where I want her to be."

  "Yes, perhaps. But it wouldn't be only for a little while that I'd notbe allowed to tell you about myself. It would be for always. Youcouldn't love me enough to be happy in spite of that."

  "I could be happy," Roger insisted, "if you'd love me."

  "I'd adore you! But...."

  "Then there isn't any 'but'. I don't say I shouldn't like to know allabout my wife and her people and her past. Still, I'd rather have youwith a future and no past than any other woman with both. I can't dowithout you, and I'm going to have you ... now, to-day, as soon as I canbuy a license and get a parson to make us man and wife."

  "But if you should regret it?"

  "I never will be sorry, if you'll do what you just said, adoreme ... half as much as I'll adore you."

  Her eyes gave him a beautiful answer. Roger Sands felt that nothingcould make him regret the coming of such a romance into his hustlinglife.

  This, then, was the story behind the sensation when Roger Sands cameback from a short trip to California bringing a wife, a girl who hadbeen a Miss Beverley White, a girl nobody had ever seen or heard ofbefore.