"I should hardly call you a marrying man," he observed.
"Perfectly right, my friend! Sister Theresa was considered
a possible match for my grandfather in my
youth. She and I are hardly contemporaries. And the
other lady with the fascinating algebraic climax to her
name,-she, too, is impossible; it seems that I can't get
the money by marrying her. I'd better let her take it.
She's as poor as the devil, I dare say."
"I imagine not. The Evanses are a wealthy family,
in spots, and she ought to have some money of her own
if her aunt doesn't coax it out of her for educational
schemes."
"And where on the map are these lovely creatures to
be found?"
"Sister Theresa's school adjoins your preserve; Miss
Devereux has I think some of your own weakness for
travel. Sister Theresa is her nearest relative, and she
occasionally visits St. Agatha's-that's the school."
"I suppose they embroider altar-cloths together and
otherwise labor valiantly to bring confusion upon Satan
and his cohorts. Just the people to pull the wool over
the eyes of my grandfather!"
Pickering smiled at my resentment.
"You'd better give them a wide berth; they might
catch you in their net. Sister Theresa is said to have
quite a winning way. She certainly plucked your grandfather."
"Nuns in spectacles, the gentle educators of youth
and that sort of thing, with a good-natured old man for
their prey. None of them for me!"
"I rather thought so," remarked Pickering,-and he
pulled his watch from his pocket and turned the stem
with his heavy fingers. He was short, thick-set and
sleek, with a square jaw, hair already thin and a close-clipped
mustache. Age, I reflected, was not improving
him.
I had no intention of allowing him to see that I was
irritated. I drew out my cigarette case and passed it
across the table, "After you! They're made quite specially for me in
Madrid."
"You forget that I never use tobacco in any form."
"You always did miss a good deal of the joy of living,"
I observed, throwing my smoking match into his
waste-paper basket, to his obvious annoyance. "Well,
I'm the bad boy of the story-books; but I'm really sorry
my inheritance has a string tied to it. I'm about out
of money. I suppose you wouldn't advance me a few
thousands on my expectations-"
"Not a cent," he declared, with quite unnecessary
vigor; and I laughed again, remembering that in my
old appraisement of him, generosity had not been represented
in large figures. "It's not in keeping with
your grandfather's wishes that I should do so. You
must have spent a good bit of money in your tiger-hunting
exploits," he added.