Jane Cable | Page 7

isn't a sign of support if the worst comes to the
worst," he chuckled.
"It's a large world, Droom," said his employer easily.
"And small also, according to another saying," supplemented Droom.
"When a man's down, everybody kicks him--I'm afraid you could not
survive the kicking."
Droom grinned so diabolically as again he resumed the rubbing of his
hands that the other turned away with an oath and closed the door to the
inside office. Bansemer was alone and where Droom's eyes could not
see him, but something told him that the grin hung outside the door for
many minutes, as if waiting for a chance to pop in and tantalise him.
Bansemer was a good-looking man of the coarser mould--the kind of
man that merits a second look in passing, and the second look is not
always in his favour. He was thirty-five years of age, but looked older.
His face was hard and deeply marked with the lines of intensity. The
black eyes were fascinating in their brilliancy, but there was a cruel,
savage light in their depths. The nose and mouth were clean-cut and
pitiless in their very symmetry. Shortly after leaving college to hang
out his shingle, he had married the daughter of a minister. For two
years her sweet influence kept his efforts along the righteous path, but
he writhed beneath the yoke of poverty. His pride suffered because he
was unable to provide her with more of the luxuries of life; in his
selfish way, he loved her. Failure to advance made him surly and
ill-tempered, despite her amiable efforts to lighten the shadows around
their little home. When the baby boy was born to them, and she
suffered more and more from the unkindness of privation, James
Bansemer, by nature an aggressor, threw off restraint and plunged into
the traffic that soon made him infamously successful. She died,
however, before the taint of his duplicity touched her, and he, even in
his grief, felt thankful that she never was to know the truth.
At this time Bansemer lived in comfort at one of the middle-class
boarding houses uptown, and the boy was just leaving the kindergarten
for a private school. Bansemer's calloused heart had one tender
chamber, and in it dwelt the little lad with the fair hair and grey eyes of
the woman who had died.

Late one November afternoon just before Bansemer put on his light
topcoat to leave the office for the day, Droom tapped on the glass panel
of the door to his private office. Usually, the clerk communicated with
him by signal--a floor button by which he could acquaint his master
with much that he ought to know, and the visitor in the outer office
would be none the wiser. The occasions were rare when he went so far
as to tap on the door. Bansemer was puzzled, and stealthily listened for
sounds from the other side. Suddenly, there came to his ears the voices
of women, mingled with Broom's suppressed but always raucous tones.
Bansemer opened the door; looking into the outer office, he saw Droom
swaying before two women, rubbing his hands and smiling. One of the
women carried a small babe in her arms. Neither she nor her
companion seemed quite at ease in the presence of the lank guardian of
the outer office.

CHAPTER IV
THE FOUNDLING

"Lady to see you!" announced Droom. The shrewd, fearless genius of
the inner room glanced up quickly and met the prolonged, uncanny
gaze of his clerk; unwillingly, his eyes fell.
"Confound it, Lias! will you ever quit looking at me like that! There's
something positively creepy in that stare of yours!"
"Lady to see you!" repeated the clerk, shifting about uneasily, and then
gliding away to take his customary look at the long row of books in the
wall cases. He had performed this act a dozen times a day for more than
five years; the habit had become so strong that chains could not have
restrained him. It was what he considered a graceful way of dropping
out of notice, at the same time giving the impression that he was
constantly busy.
"Are you Mr. Bansemer?" asked the woman with the babe in her arms,
as he crossed into the outer office.
For a moment Bansemer purposely remained absorbed in the
contemplation of his finger nails; then he shot a sudden comprehensive

glance which took in the young woman, her burden and all the
supposed conditions. There was no doubt in his mind that here was
another "paternity case," as he catalogued them in his big, black book.
"I am," he replied shortly, for he usually made short, quick work of
such cases. There was not much money in them at best. They spring
from the