“Don’t come in,” he murmured wanly,
“you’ll muss them. I’m sorting,
and I know you’ll step in them. Everything
always gets mussed.”
“What are you doing?” demanded Dick in
astonishment. “Going back to childhood?
Don’t you realize you’ve won the suit?
They’ve reversed the decision of the lower courts.
You’re worth thirty millions!”
Anthony only looked at him reproachfully.
“Shut the door when you go out.”
He spoke like a pert child.
With a faint horror dawning in her eyes, Gloria gazed
at him—
“Anthony!” she cried, “what is it?
What’s the matter? Why didn’t you
come—why, what is it?”
“See here,” said Anthony softly, “you
two get out—now, both of you. Or else
I’ll tell my grandfather.”
He held up a handful of stamps and let them come drifting
down about him like leaves, varicolored and bright,
turning and fluttering gaudily upon the sunny air:
stamps of England and Ecuador, Venezuela and Spain—Italy....
That exquisite heavenly irony which has tabulated
the demise of so many generations of sparrows doubtless
records the subtlest verbal inflections of the passengers
of such ships as The Berengaria. And doubtless
it was listening when the young man in the plaid cap
crossed the deck quickly and spoke to the pretty girl
in yellow.
“That’s him,” he said, pointing
to a bundled figure seated in a wheel chair near the
rail. “That’s Anthony Patch.
First time he’s been on deck.”
“Oh—that’s him?”
“Yes. He’s been a little crazy, they
say, ever since he got his money, four or five months
ago. You see, the other fellow, Shuttleworth,
the religious fellow, the one that didn’t get
the money, he locked himself up in a room in a hotel
and shot himself—
“Oh, he did—”
“But I guess Anthony Patch don’t care
much. He got his thirty million. And he’s
got his private physician along in case he doesn’t
feel just right about it. Has she been
on deck?” he asked.
The pretty girl in yellow looked around cautiously.
“She was here a minute ago. She had on
a Russian-sable coat that must have cost a small fortune.”
She frowned and then added decisively: “I
can’t stand her, you know. She seems sort
of—sort of dyed and unclean, if
you know what I mean. Some people just have that
look about them whether they are or not.”
“Sure, I know,” agreed the man with the
plaid cap. “She’s not bad-looking,
though.” He paused. “Wonder what
he’s thinking about—his money, I
guess, or maybe he’s got remorse about that fellow
Shuttleworth.”
“Probably....”
