"
He was perfectly willing, I was only at the office an hour, yet the news
seemed to have spread. I promised the clerks a dinner when I returned,
then once more I stood in the street, alone.
My brain was dizzy, my thoughts in a whirl. I remember taking a cab and
driving to a shop into which I had often looked with longing eyes. I
bought wine, grapes, peaches, flowers, dainty jellies--everything that I
thought most likely to please my sister--and then drove home. I had
resolved that I would not tell my good fortune to Clare all at once,
lest there should be some fatal mistake unforeseen by any one. She
looked up astonished when I entered the room, my arms full of fruit and
flowers.
"Oh, Edgar!" she cried, "you have ruined yourself. Why you must have
spent your whole week's money!"
I forgot now what fiction I told here--something of a friend of my
father, who had left me a little money, and that I was going away that
same evening on business.
"Shall you be long?" she asked, with so sad a face I did not like to
leave her.
"Two or three days at the outside," I told her. Then I took twenty
golden sovereigns from my purse and laid them before her, begging her
not to want for anything while I was away.
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