The Desired Woman | Page 2

not taken my advice. He was afraid, too, that Delbridge would get on to
it and laugh at him."
"Delbridge is too shrewd to tackle a risk like that," Wright returned. He
glanced about the room cautiously, and then added: "I don't know as I
have any right to be talking about Mostyn's affairs even to you, but I
am pretty sure that he got good news. He didn't show me the telegram
when it came, but I watched his face as he read it. I saw his eyes flash;
he smiled at me, walked toward his office with a light step, as he
always does when he's lucky, and then he swayed sideways and keeled
over in a dead faint. The porter and I picked him up, carried him to his
lounge, and sprinkled water in his face. Then we sent for the doctor. He
gave him a dose of something or other and told him not to do a lick of
work for a month."

"Well, I'll step in and see him." Saunders rose. "I guess he won't mind.
He's too big a plunger for a town of this size. He lets things get on his
nerves too much. He has no philosophy of life. I wouldn't go his pace
for all the money in the U. S. Treasury."
"Right you are," the teller returned, as he went back to his work.
Opening the door of his partner's office, Saunders found him seated on
the lounge smoking a cigar. He was about thirty-five years of age, tall,
broad-shouldered, with blue eyes, yellow mustache, and was good-
looking and well built. Glancing up, he smiled significantly and nodded.
There were dark rings round his eyes, and the hand holding his cigar
quivered nervously.
"I suppose you heard of that silly duck fit of mine?" he smiled, the
corners of his rather sensuous mouth twitching.
Saunders nodded as he sat down in the revolving-chair at the desk and
slowly swung it round till he faced his partner.
"It's a wonder to me that you are able to talk about it," he said, sharply.
"You've been through enough in the last ten days to kill a dozen
ordinary men. You've taken too many stimulants, smoked like the
woods afire, and on top of it all instead of getting natural sleep you've
amused yourself at all hours of the night. You've bolted your food, and
fussed and fumed over Delbridge's affairs, which, heaven knows, have
nothing at all to do with your own."
"I suppose I do keep track of the fellow," Mostyn smiled. "People
compare us constantly. We started about the same time, and it rankles
to hear of his making a lucky strike just when I've had a tumble. This
matter of my backing Warner when I went to Augusta they told me
they had met with more bad luck, and if I didn't advance fresh funds
they would have to go under. It was the biggest risk I ever took, but I
took it. I raised the money on my street-railway bonds. For a day or so
afterward I was hopeful, but they quit writing and wouldn't answer my
wires. My lawyer in Augusta wrote me that they were all three on the
verge of suicide, and if they could not close a certain deal in Boston

they would go under. That's what I've been waiting on for the last week,
and that's why I've been crazy. But it is all right now-- all right. I'm safe,
and I made money, too--money that Delbridge would like to have."
"There are no two ways about it." Saunders reached for a cigar in a tray
on the desk and cut off the tip with a paper-knife. "You've got to take a
rest and get your mind off of business."
"Nobody knows that better than I do," Mostyn said, a sickly smile
playing over his wan face, "and I'm in the mood for it. I feel as a man
feels who has just escaped the gallows. I'm going to the mountains, and
I don't intend to open a business letter or think once of this hot hole in a
wall for a month. I'm going to fish and hunt and lie in the shade and
swap yarns with mossback moonshiners. I've just been thinking of it,
and it's like a soothing dream of peace and quiet. You know old Tom
Drake's place near your farm? I boarded there two weeks three years
ago and loved every cat and dog about. Tom told me to come any time
I felt like it."
"No better place anywhere," Saunders said. "I shall run up home now
and then, and can see you and report, but you needn't bother about us;
we'll keep this thing afloat. I'm wondering