The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton Part 41

"Is that what you think?" Edith asked him, smiling.

"You aren't exactly the style I've always admired," he confessed, "but there's something about you," he added, in a puzzled manner,--"I don't know what it is but I remember it from a year ago--something that seemed to catch hold of me. I expect I must be a sentimental sort of Johnny underneath. However, I do admire you, Edith, immensely. I only wish--"

Again she evaded him.

"Please do not forget Mr. Bomford," she begged.

"That silly old a.s.s!" Burton exclaimed. "Looks as though he'd swallowed a poker! You're never going to marry him!"

"I think that I shall," she replied. "At any rate, at present I am engaged to him. Therefore, if you please, you must keep just a little further away. I don't like to mention it, but I think--haven't you been smoking rather too much?"

He laughed, without a trace of sensitiveness. "I have been having rather a day of it," he admitted. "But I say, Edith, if you won't come to supper, I think you might let a fellow--"

She drew back into her corner.

"Mr. Burton," she said, "you must please not come near me."

"But I want a kiss," he protested. "You'd have given me one the other night. You'd have given me as many as I'd liked. You almost clung to me--that night under the cedar tree."

Her eyes for a moment were half closed.

"It was a different world then," she whispered softly. "It was a different Mr. Burton. You see, since then a curtain has come down. We are starting a fresh act and I don't think I know you quite so well as I did."

"Sounds like tommyrot," he grumbled.

The taxicab came to a standstill. The man got down and opened the door.

Burton half sulkily stepped out on to the pavement.

"Well, here you are," he announced. "Can't say that I think much of you this evening."

She held out her hand. They were standing on the pavement now, in the light of a gas-lamp, and with the chauffeur close at hand. She was not in the least afraid but there was a lump in her throat. He looked so very common, so far away from those little memories with which she must grapple!

"Mr. Burton," she said, "good-night! I want to thank you for this evening and I want to ask you to promise that if ever you are sorry because I persuaded you to sell those little beans, you will forgive me.

It was a very wonderful thing, you know, and I didn't understand.

Perhaps I was wrong."

"Don't you worry," he answered, cheerfully. "That's all right, anyway.

It's jolly well the best thing I ever did in my life. Got my pockets full of money already, and I mean to have a thundering good time with it. No fear of my ever blaming you. Good-night, Miss Edith! My regards to the governor and tell him I am all on for Menatogen."

He gave his hat a little twist and stepped back into the taxi.

"I will give my father your message," she told him, as the door opened to receive her.

"Righto!" Burton replied. "Leicester Square, cabby!"

CHAPTER XXIX

RICHES AND REPENTANCE

There was considerable excitement in Laurence Avenue when a few mornings later Mr. Alfred Burton, in a perfectly appointed motor-car, drew up before the door of Clematis Villa. In a very leisurely manner he descended and stood looking around him for a moment in the front garden.

"Poky little place," he said half to himself, having completed a disparaging survey. "Hullo, Johnson! How are you?"

Mr. Johnson, who, with a little bag in his hand, had just trudged a mile to save a penny, looked with something like amazement at the apparition which confronted him. Mr. Alfred Burton was arrayed in town clothes of the most p.r.o.nounced cut. His tail coat was exactly the right length; his trousers, although the pattern was a little loud, were exceedingly well cut. He wore patent boots with white gaiters, a carefully brushed silk hat, and he carried in his hand a pair of yellow kid gloves. He had a malacca cane with a gold top under his arm, and a cigar at the usual angle in the corner of his mouth. No wonder that Mr.

Johnson, who was, it must be confessed, exceedingly shabby, took his pipe from his mouth and stared at his quondam friend in amazement.

"Hullo, Burton, you back again?" he exclaimed weakly.

"I am back again just to settle up here," Mr. Burton explained, with a wave of the hand. "Just run down in the car to take the missis out a little way."

Mr. Johnson held on to the railing tightly.

"Your car?"

"My car," Mr. Burton admitted, modestly. "Take you for a ride some day, if you like. How's the wife?"

"First-cla.s.s, thanks," Mr. Johnson replied. "First-cla.s.s, thank you, Mr. Burton."

Burton protested mildly.

"No need to 'Mr. Burton' me, Johnson, old fellow! It shall never be said of me that a great and wonderful rise in the world altered my feelings towards those with whom I was once on terms of intimacy. I shall always be glad to know you, Johnson. Thursday evening, isn't it? What are you and the wife doing?"

"I don't know," Johnson confessed, "that we are doing anything particular. We shall turn up at the band, I suppose."

"Good!" Mr. Burton said. "It will be our last Thursday evening in these parts, I expect, but after I have taken the wife for a little spin we'll walk round the band-stand ourselves. Perhaps we shall be able to induce you and Mrs. Johnson to come back and take a little supper with us?"

Mr. Johnson pulled himself together.

"Very kind of you, old c.o.c.ky," he declared, tremulously. "Been striking it thick, haven't you?"

Burton nodded.

"Dropped across a little thing in the city," he remarked, flicking the dust from the sleeve of his coat. "Jolly good spec it turned out. They made me a director. It's this new Menatogen Company. Heard of it?"

"G.o.d bless my soul, of course I have!" Johnson exclaimed. "Millions in it, they say. The shares went from par to four premium in half an hour.

I know a man who had a call of a hundred. He's cleared four hundred pounds."

Mr. Burton nodded in a most condescending manner.

"That so?" he remarked. "I've a matter of ten thousand myself, besides some further calls, but I'm not selling just yet. If your friend's got any left, you can tell him from me--and I ought to know as I'm a director--that the shares will be at nine before long. Shouldn't wonder if they didn't go to twenty. It's a grand invention. Best thing I ever touched in my life."

Johnson had been finding it chilly a short time ago but he took off his hat now and mopped his forehead.

"Haven't been home lately, have you?" he remarked.

"To tell you the truth," Mr. Burton explained, puffing at his cigar, "this little affair has been taking up every minute of my time. I had to take chambers in town to keep up with my work. Well, so long, Johnson! See you later at the band-stand. Don't forget we shall be expecting you this evening. May run you up to the west-end, perhaps, if the missis feels like it."