Friday, the Thirteenth | Page 6

Bob in my office that
long-ago noon, gracefully at ease in a suit of gray, with a
gray-feathered turban on her head, and tiny lace bands at neck and wrist,
she was very exquisite, exceedingly dainty, and, though Southerner of
Southerners, very unlike the typical brunette girl who comes out of
Dixie land.
This girl who came into our office that July Saturday, just in time to
interfere with the outing Bob Brownley and I had laid out, and who was
destined to divert my chum's heretofore smooth-flowing river of
existence and turn it into an alternation of roaring rushes and deadly
calms, was truly the most exquisite creature one could conceive of, I
know my thought must have been Bob's too, for his eyes were riveted
on her face. She dropped the black lashes like a veil as she went on:
"Mr. Brownley, I have just come from Sands Landing. I am very
anxious to talk with you on a business matter. I have brought a letter to
you from my father. If you have other engagements I can wait until
Monday, although," and the black veiling lashes lifted, showing the
half-laughing, half-pathetic eyes, "I wanted much to lay my business
before you at the earliest minute possible."
There was a faint touch of appeal in the charming voice as she spoke
that was irresistible, and we were both willing to forget we had lunch
waiting us on the Tribesman.

"Step into my office, Miss Sands, and all my time is yours," said Bob,
as he opened the door between his office and mine. After I had sent a
note to my wife, saying we might be delayed for an hour or two, I
settled down to wait for Bob in the general office, and it was a long
wait. Thirty minutes went into an hour and an hour into two before Bob
and Miss Sands came out. After he had put her in a cab for her hotel, he
said in a tone curiously intent: "Jim, I have got to talk with you, got to
get some of your good advice. Suppose we hustle along to the yacht
and after lunch you tell Kate we have some business to go over. I don't
want to keep that girl waiting any longer than possible for an answer I
cannot give until I get your ideas." After lunch, on the bow end of the
upper deck Bob relieved himself. Relieved is the word, for from the
minute he had put Miss Sands into the carriage until then, it was
evident even to my wife that his thoughts were anywhere but upon our
outing.
"Jim," he began in a voice that shook in spite of his efforts to make it
sound calm, "there is no disguising the fact that I am mightily worked
up about this matter, and I want to do everything possible for this girl.
No need of my telling you how sacred we have got to keep what she
has just let me into. You'll see as I go along that it is sacred, and I know
you will look at it as I do. Miss Sands must be helped out of her
trouble.
"Judge Lee Sands, her father, is the head of the old Sands family of
Virginia. The Virginia Sands don't take off their bonnets to another
family in this country, or elsewhere, for that matter, for anything that
really counts. They have had brains, learning, money, and fixed
position since Virginia was first settled. They are the best people of our
State. It is a cross-road saying in Virginia that a Sands of Sands
Landing can go to the bench, the United States Senate, the House, or
the governor's chair for the starting, and nearly all of the men folks
have held one or all of these honours for generations. The present judge
has held them all. I don't know him personally, although my people and
his have been thick from away back. Sands Landing on the James is
some fifty miles above our home. The judge, Beulah Sands's father, is
close on to seventy, and I have heard mother and father say is a stalwart,

a Virginia stalwart. Being rich--that is, what we Virginians call rich, a
million or so--he has been very active in affairs, and I knew before his
daughter told me, that he was the trustee for about all the best estates in
our part of the country. It seems from what she tells, that of late he has
been very active in developing our coal-mines and railroads, and that
particularly he took a prominent hand in the Seaboard Air Line. You
know the road, for your father was a director, and I think the house has
been prominent in its banking affairs.