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And when I see a face like yours holding out a potful of dollars, I know as how you've stolen them. Git!" and Hamar flew. But Hamar was not so easily nonplussed; not at least when he saw a chance of making money. Entering the garden, and keeping well out of sight of the gardener, he arrived at the front door by a side path, and with much formality requested to see the owner of the establishment.
In the afternoon all the San Francisco specials were full of the incident, and Hamar, seeing his name placarded for the first time, was so overcome that he spent the rest of the evening in the hotel deliberating how he could best turn his sudden notoriety to account. At ten o'clock Kelson came in, looking somewhat fatigued, but, nevertheless, pleased.
Once more the normal aspect of the situation began to reimpose itself upon the two women. They remembered the locked door, the secrecy of their visitor's entrance, and his disordered condition. "May I ask to whom we are indebted for this great service?" Philippa enquired. "My name for the present is Hamar Lessingham," was the suave reply. "For the present?" Philippa repeated.
For a few moments there was silence, and then Shiel exclaimed mechanically "Engaged to be married! To whom?" "To Leon Hamar! I couldn't help it." And she explained the position. "But he'll never keep you to it," Shiel said. "He couldn't be such a brute." "I'm afraid he will," Gladys replied. "He's shown pretty clearly that he's capable of anything. I've given him my promise I must keep it."
"I am just thinking," Kelson replied, "I believe my partner, Mr. Hamar, wants a secretary. I can't, of course, say whether you would suit him. Do you type?" "I can type and do shorthand," Lilian Rosenberg replied eagerly, "and I can correspond in German and French." "And the salary? Would two hundred a year do?" "Yes," after a slight pause, "I could make it do.
With Hamar it was otherwise the joy of triumph was strong within him, and the picture of John Martin, leaning forward in his chair, with his mouth half open and a dazed, glassy expression in his eyes, only thrilled him with pleasure; he laughed at the old man, and still more at Gladys. "That's the way to treat a girl of that sort," he whispered to Kelson; "scoff at her scoff at her well.
Lemon hissed. "Why, damn you nothing. We're not bankers. All we've got to do is clear out and try somewhere else." "That might not be so easy as you imagine," Hamar interposed. "We would make it our business to have a scene first. Why not come to terms? We'll not be over exorbitant and consider the convenience of not having to shift your quarters."
Sooner or later you must give in, so why not end all this needless unpleasantness now, and receive me if not with open arms at least amicably. You are so awfully pretty! I must have just one " but before he could kiss Gladys the police arrived, and Hamar once more retired with somewhat undignified haste, and more than a little discomfited.
"It will lead to a quarrel with Hamar," Kelson said desperately. "The Firm will dissolve and I shan't get a cent more money." "I'll be content with what you have in the bank now. We can live on the interest of fifty thousand. The hundred thousand you will, of course, settle on me at once." He was silent.
"In a sense, yes," he replied, thrusting it into his waistcoat pocket. "I presume we can consider our late subject of conversation finished with?" "I have nothing more to say," she pronounced. "Very well, then," her husband agreed, "let us select another topic. This time, supposing I choose?" "You are welcome." "Let us converse, then, about Mr. Hamar Lessingham." Philippa had taken up her work.
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