The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart Page A

out of Mrs. Klopton's indignant hand. What was it McKnight had said about making an egregious ass of myself?
     
      And that brought me back to Richey, and I fancy I groaned. There is no use expatiating on the friendship between two men who have gone together through college, have quarreled and made it up, fussed together over politics and debated creeds for years: men don't need to be told, and women can not understand. Nevertheless, I groaned. If it had been any one but Rich!
     
      Some things were mine, however, and I would hold them: the halcyon breakfast, the queer hat, the pebble in her small shoe, the gold bag with the broken chain - the bag! Why, it was in my pocket at that moment.
     
      I got up painfully and found my coat. Yes, there was the purse, bulging with an opulent suggestion of wealth inside. I went back to bed again, somewhat dizzy, between effort and the touch of the trinket, so lately hers. I held it up by its broken chain and gloated over it. By careful attention to orders, I ought to be out in a day or so. Then - I could return it to her. I really ought to do that: it was valuable, and I wouldn't care to trust it to the mail. I could run down to Richmond, and see her once - there was no disloyalty to Rich in that.
     
      I had no intention of opening the little bag. I put it under my pillow - which was my reason for refusing to have the linen slips changed, to Mrs. Klopton's dismay. And sometimes during the morning, while I lay under a virgin field of white, ornamented with strange flowers, my cigarettes hidden beyond discovery, and Science and Health on a table by my elbow, as if by the merest accident, I slid my hand under my pillow and touched it reverently.
     
      McKnight came in about eleven. I heard his car at the curb, followed almost immediately by his slam at the front door, and his usual clamor on the stairs. He had a bottle under his arm, rightly surmising that I had been forbidden stimulant, and a large box of cigarettes in his pocket, suspecting my deprivation.
     
      "Well," he said cheerfully. "How did you sleep after keeping me up half the night?"
     
      I slid my hand around: the purse was well covered. "Have it now, or wait till I get the cork out?" he rattled on.
     
      "I don't want anything," I protested. "I wish you wouldn't be so darned cheerful, Richey." He stopped whistling to stare at me.
     
      "'I am saddest when I sing!'" he quoted unctuously. "It's pure reaction, Lollie. Yesterday the sky was low: I was digging for my best friend. To-day - he lies before me, his peevish self. Yesterday I thought the notes were burned: to-day - I look forward to a good cross-country chase, and with luck we will draw." His voice changed suddenly. "Yesterday - she was in Seal Harbor. To-day - she is here."
     
      "Here in Washington?" I asked, as naturally as I could.
     
      "Yes. Going to stay a week or two."
     
     
     
      "Oh, I had a little hen and she had a wooden leg And nearly every morning she used to lay an egg - "
     
      "Will you stop that racket, Rich! It's the real thing this time, I suppose?"
     
      "She's the best little chicken that we have on the farm And another little drink won't do us any harm - "
     
      he finished, twisting out the corkscrew. Then he came over and sat down on the bed.
     
      "Well," he said judicially, "since you drag it from me, I think perhaps it is. You - you're such a confirmed woman-hater that I hardly knew how you would take it."
     
      "Nothing of the sort," I denied testily. "Because a man reaches the age of thirty without making maudlin love to every - "
     
      "I've taken to long country rides," he went on reflectively, without listening to me, "and yesterday I ran over a sheep; nearly went into the ditch. But there's a Providence that watches over fools and lovers, and just now I know darned