“What Sidney means,” said the girl, “is that you really don’t know anything about us when you come to think of it. You mustn’t risk lending all this money without any security at all to two people who, after all, are almost strangers. If I hadn’t thought that you would be quite businesslike about this I would never have dared to come to you.”
“The idea of—er—pledging the pearls at the local Mont de Piété was, you will readily understand, repugnant to us,” said the brother.
“If you will just give me a receipt, as a matter of form—”
“Oh, right-o!”
I wrote out the receipt and handed it over, feeling more or less of an ass.
“Here you are,” I said.
The girl took the piece of paper, shoved it in her bag, grabbed the money and slipped it to brother Sidney, and then, before I knew what was happening, she had darted at me, kissed me, and legged it from the room.
I’m bound to say the thing rattled me. So dashed sudden and unexpected. I mean, a girl