Part 59

There was not a trace of recognition in his glance.

Patty's only intention had been to announce their identity, and invite him to deliver them at St. Ursula's door, but Patty was incapable of approaching any matter by the direct route when a labyrinth was also available. She drew a deep breath, and to Conny's consternation, plunged into the labyrinth.

"You Mr. Laurence K. Gilroy?" she dropped a curtsy. "I come find-a you."

"So I see," said Mr. Laurence K. Gilroy, dryly. "And now that you've found me, what do you want?"

"I want tell-a your fortune," Patty glibly dropped into the lingo she and Conny had practised on the school the night before. "You cross-a my hand with silver--I tell-a your fortune."

This was no situation of Conny's choosing, but she was always staunchly game.

"Nice-a fortune," she backed Patty up. "Tall young lady. Ver' beautiful."

"Well, of all the nerve!"

Mr. Gilroy leaned back in his chair and regarded them severely, but with a gleam of amusement flickering through.

"Where did you get my name?" he demanded.

Patty waved her hand airily toward the open window and the distant horizon--as it showed between the coal sheds and the dynamo building.

"Gypsy peoples, dey learn signs," she explained lucidly. "Sky, wind, clouds--all talk--but you no understand. I get message for you--Mr. Laurence K. Gilroy--and we come from long-a way off to tell-a your fortune." With a pathetic little gesture, she indicated their damaged foot gear. "Ver' tired. We travel far."

Mr. Gilroy put his hand in his pocket and produced two silver half dollars.

"Here's your money. Now be honest! What sort of a bunco game is this? And where in thunder did you get my name?"

They pocketed the money, dropped two more curtsies, and evaded inconvenient questions.

"We tell-a your fortune," said Conny, with business-like directness. She brought out the pack of cards, plumped herself cross-legged on the floor, and dealt them out in a wide circle. Patty seized the gentleman's hand in her two coffee-stained little paws, and turned it palm up for inspection. He made an embarrassed effort to draw away, but she clung with the tenacious grip of a monkey.

"I see a lady!" she announced with promptitude.

"Tall young lady--brown eyes, yellow hair, ver' beautiful," Conny echoed from the floor, as she leaned forward and intently studied the queen of hearts.

"But she make-a you lot of trouble," Patty added, frowning over a blister on his hand. "I see li'l' quarrel."

Mr. Gilroy's eyes narrowed. In spite of himself, he commenced to be interested.

"You like-a her very much," pronounced Conny from below.

"But you never see her any more," chimed in Patty. "One--two--three--four months, you no see her, no spik with her." She looked up into his startled eyes. "But you think about her every day!"

He made a quick movement of withdrawal, and Patty hastily added a further detail.

"Dat tall young lady, she ver' unhappy too. She no laugh no more like she used."

He arrested the movement and waited with a touch of anxious curiosity to hear what was coming next.

"She feel ver' bad--ver' cross, ver' unhappy. She thinks always 'bout that li'l' quarrel. Four months she sit and wait--but you never come back."

Mr. Gilroy rose abruptly and strode to the window.

His unexpected visitors had dropped from the sky at the psychological moment. For two straight hours that afternoon he had been sitting at his desk grappling with the problem, which they, in their broken English, were so ably handling. Should he swallow a great deal of pride, and make another plea for justice? St. Ursula's vacation was at hand; in a few days more she would be gone--and very possibly she would never come back. The world at large was full of men, and Miss Jellings had a taking way.