The Brightener Part 29

"Then you won't undertake the task?" I quavered.

"I don't say that," grudged Jim.

"You _wouldn't_ say it if you could meet Joyce Arnold," I coaxed. "She's such a darling girl. Poor child, she's out now, pulling strings for a job in India."

"Meeting her wouldn't make any difference to me," said Jim. "It's for you I'd try to bring off this stunt--if I tried at all."

"Oh, then do it for me," I broke out.

"That's what I was working up to," he replied. "I wouldn't say 'yes' and I wouldn't say 'no' till I knew what you'd do for me in return if I succeeded."

"Why, I'd thank you a thousand times!" I cried. "I'd--I'd never forget you as long as I live."

"There's not much in that for me. I hate being thanked for things. And what good would it do me to be remembered by you at a distance, perhaps married to some beast or other?"

"But if I marry I sha'n't marry a beast," I sweetly a.s.sured my forty-fourth cousin four times removed.

"I should think any man you married a beast, if he wasn't me," said Jim.

"Good heavens!" I breathed. "Surely _you_ don't want to marry me!"

"Surely I do," he retorted. "And what's more, you know it jolly well."

"I don't."

"You do. You've known it ever since that affair of the yacht. If you hadn't, you wouldn't have asked me to hide the Scarlett kid. I knew then that you knew. And you'd be a fool if you hadn't known--which you're not."

I said no more, because--I was found out! I _had_ known. Only, I hadn't let myself think about it much--until lately perhaps. But now and then I _had_ thought. I'd thought quite a good deal.

When he had me silenced, Jim went on:

"Just like a woman! You're willing to let me sacrifice all my engagements and inclinations to start off on a wild-goose chase for you, while you give nothing in return----"

"But I would!" I cut in.

"What would you give?"

"What do you want?"

"Yourself, of course."

"Oh!"

"If you'll marry me in case I find out that someone's been playing a devil's trick on Lorillard," said Jim, "I'll do--my d.a.m.nedest! How's that?"

I shrugged my shoulders, and looked debonair; which was easy, as my nose is that shape. Yet my heart pounded.

"You seem to think the sacrifice of your engagements and inclinations worth a big price!"

"I know it's a big price," he granted. "But every man has his price.

That happens to be mine. You may not have to pay, however, even in the event of my success. Because, in the course of my operations I may do something that'll land me in quod. In that case, you're free. I wouldn't mate you with a gaol bird."

I stared, and gasped.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you know me intimately enough to be sure that once I'm on the warpath I stop at nothing?" he challenged.

"I don't think you'd be easy to stop," I said. "That's why I've called on you to help me. But really, I can't understand what there is in the thing to send you to prison."

"You don't need to understand," snorted Jim. "I sha'n't get there if I can keep out, because that would be the way to lose my prize. But I suppose from your point of view the great thing is for your two dearest friends to be happy ever after."

"Not at a terrible cost to you," I just stopped myself from saying.

Instead, I hedged: "You frighten me!" I cried. "And you make me curious--_fearfully_ curious. What _can_ you be meaning to do?"

"That's my business!" said Jim.

"You've got a plan--already?"

"Yes, I've got a plan--already, if----"

"If what?"

"If you agree to the bargain. Do you?"

I nodded.

He seized my hand and squeezed it hard.

"Then I'm off," he said. "You won't hear from me till I have news, good or bad. And meanwhile I have no address."

With that he was gone.

I felt as if he had left me alone in the dark.

CHAPTER VI

THE LAST SeANCE

The only way in which I could keep Joyce with me for a little while longer was by pretending to be ill. _That_ fetched her. And it wasn't all pretense, either, because I was horribly worried, not only about her and Robert, but about Jim. And about myself.

I said not a word to Joyce of Jim and his mission. So far as she knew I'd abandoned hope--as she had. We heard nothing from Robert, or concerning him, and each day that built itself up was a gloomier _cul de sac_ than the last.

Bye and bye there came the end of Miss Reardon's fortnight in London.