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Nell of Shorne Mills

Page 64

Nell walked rapidly and talking quickly as they went down to the jetty,

and it was not until the _Annie Laurie_ was slipping out into the bay

that she grew silent and thoughtful. She sat in the stern with her arm

over the tiller, her eyes cast down, her face grave; and Drake, feeling

uncomfortable, said at last: "Might one offer a penny for your thoughts, Miss Nell?"

She looked up and met the challenge with a sweet seriousness.

"I was thinking of something that you told me the other day--when we

were riding," she said.

"I've told you so much----" "And so little!" he added mentally.

"You said that you had been unlucky, that you had lost a great deal of

money lately," she said, in a low voice.

He nodded.

"Yes; I think I did. It's true unfortunately; but it doesn't much

matter."

"Does it not?" she asked. "Why did you give mamma so costly a present?

Oh, please don't deny it. I don't know very much about diamonds, but I

know that that bracelet must have cost a great deal of money."

"Not really," he said, with affected carelessness. "Diamonds are very

cheap now; they find 'em by the bucketful in the Cape, you know."

She looked at him with grave reproach.

"You are trying to belittle it," she said; "but, indeed, I am not

deceived. And the gun, too! That must have been very expensive. Why--did

you spend so much?"

He began to feel irritated.

"Look here, Miss Nell," he said; "it is true that I have lost some

money, but I'm not quite a pauper, and, if I were, the least I could do

would be to share my last crust with--with your people for their amazing

goodness to me."

"A diamond bracelet and an expensive gun are not crusts," she said,

shaking her head.

"Oh, dash it all!" he retorted impatiently. "The stupid things only very

inadequately represent my----Oh, I'm bad at speech making and expressing

myself. And don't you think you ought to be very grateful to me?"

She frowned slightly in the effort to understand.

"Grateful! I have just been telling you that I think you ought not to

have spent so much. Why should I be grateful?"

"That I didn't buy something for you," he said.

She colored, and looked away from him.

"I--I should not have accepted it," she said.

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