TO-MORROW
Page: 24

I think I am a sort of Gambucino myself."

"No woman can hold you, then," she began in
a brazen voice, which quavered suddenly before the
end.

"No longer than a week," he joked, playing
upon her very heartstrings with the gay, tender
note of his laugh; "and yet I am fond of them
all. Anything for a woman of the right sort.
The scrapes they got me into, and the scrapes they
got me out of! I love them at first sight. I've
fallen in love with you already, Miss--Bessie's your
name--eh?"

She backed away a little, and with a trembling
laugh:

"You haven't seen my face yet."

He bent forward gallantly. "A little pale: it
suits some. But you are a fine figure of a girl, Miss
Bessie."

She was all in a flutter. Nobody had ever said
so much to her before.

His tone changed. "I am getting middling
hungry, though. Had no breakfast to-day.
Couldn't you scare up some bread from that tea
for me, or--"

She was gone already. He had been on the point
of asking her to let him come inside. No matter.
Anywhere would do. Devil of a fix! What would
his chum think?

"I didn't ask you as a beggar," he said, jest-
ingly, taking a piece of bread-and-butter from the
plate she held before him. "I asked as a friend.
My dad is rich, you know."

"He starves himself for your sake."

"And I have starved for his whim," he said, tak-
ing up another piece.

"All he has in the world is for you," she
pleaded.

"Yes, if I come here to sit on it like a dam' toad
in a hole. Thank you; and what about the shovel,
eh? He always had a queer way of showing his
love."

"I could bring him round in a week," she sug-
gested, timidly.

He was too hungry to answer her; and, holding
the plate submissively to his hand, she began to
whisper up to him in a quick, panting voice. He
listened, amazed, eating slower and slower, till at
last his jaws stopped altogether. "That's his
game, is it?" he said, in a rising tone of scathing
contempt. An ungovernable movement of his arm
sent the plate flying out of her fingers. He shot
out a violent curse.

She shrank from him, putting her hand against