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She had forgotten by this time her first self-consciousness in talking to the discharged workman, and he, too, seemed less truculent, as if he enjoyed letting off steam and stating his point of view to his ex-employer. "How old are you?" Adelle asked. "Twenty-eight," the mason replied.
That was only a few years older than Adelle herself, but she recognized that the man's experience of living had been far more than hers, also deeper, so that he was justified in having opinions on the serious things of life. Wealth, she might think, was not the only road to "a full life" so much talked of in her circle. "Have you always been a stone mason?" she wanted to know.
As the cab lurched, throwing the girl nearer him, he grasped her very firmly and kissed her. The Kaiser Nonsuch sailed on the Thursday, and it was now Monday.... As his mustached lips sought her small mouth and met the cold, hard little lips, he knew that he had taken a fearful risk. Adelle did not scream. She did not struggle very much.
The trust officer did not rise on their entrance as the judge always had risen; merely nodded to them, motioned to some chairs against the wall, and continued writing on a memorandum pad. Both the widow and Adelle felt that they were not of much importance to the Washington Trust Company, which was precisely what the trust company liked to have its clients feel. "Well," Mr.
When it came to the necessary point Adelle, as we have seen, made her own decisions and abided by them, which is more than the strenuous always do. At one time, in the course of the long debate with herself, Adelle felt that she must appeal to some one for advice. In such stress and perplexity a woman usually appeals to priest or doctor, or both.
Adelle looked at the stranger in bewilderment. She was a dainty person, as small as Adelle, but a perfectly formed young woman. Her black hair was tightly braided over her small head, in a fashion then strange, and her face was very pale, of a natural pallor emphasized by the line of carmine lips. Her eyes were black and wide. She smiled gently, contentedly, upon Adelle.
Adelle took the letter from him with a sense of faintness that she could not explain. She had been right in her conjecture: that seemed to her a very great point. "I was bringin' 'em up to the house last night," the mason explained, "but seen you had company, so kep' 'em until to-day." So he had not thought of going to San Francisco on a spree! Adelle's woman conceit might have been sadly dashed.
He doesn't seem to think well of the idea." "It's foolish," the mason growled. Adelle looked at him swiftly, with a little smile that was sad. "I was afraid he would say that, Judge," she said softly. "You know any man would!... I ain't never begged from a woman yet." "The woman, it seems to me, has nothing to do with the question," the judge put in. "And it isn't begging," Adelle protested.
The mason did not reply, but there was a reckless gleam in his blue eyes. He worked vigorously, then volunteered evasively, "I was just celebratin' around." "Celebrating what?" "Things in general what you was tellin' me about our bein' cousins," he said, with a touch of his usual humor. "Oh!" Adelle replied, discomposed. He had been thinking about it, then.
Miss Baxter did not come back to make the tea, as she usually did at this hour. Adelle was acutely aware that the young man had counted on getting this tea and really needed the nourishment. She wanted to give him food, to be kind to him. At last she ventured to suggest, "Don't you know some place around here where we could get something to eat?