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“They are all like that,” Tommy said, “but if I were you I wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

Dick brightened. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Not if I had to carry her off under my arm,” said Tommy between his teeth.

“But I can’t carry her off, Tommy–and she won’t go.”

“She’ll go if you ain’t afraid of her,” Tommy told him with solemn emphasis. “I was afraid.”

They were under the street lamp, and Dick stared at him in astonishment. “I didn’t know you were afraid of anything.”

“I didn’t know it either,” was Tommy’s grim response, “until I met her. But I’ve known it ever since.”

“Well, it’s hard luck.”

“It is hardest at Christmas time,” said Tommy, “and my beat ain’t the best one to make me cheerful. There are too many stores. And dolls in the windows. And drums. And horns. And Santa Claus handing out things to kids. And I’ve got to see it, with money just burning in my pocket to buy things and to have a tree of my own and a turkey in my oven and a table with some one who cares at the other end. And all I’ll get out of the merry season is a table d’hote at Nitti’s and a box of cigars from the boys.”

“Ain’t women the limit, Tommy?”

“Well”–Tommy’s tone held a note of forced cheerfulness–“that little redhead must have had some reason for not wanting you, Dick. Maybe we men ain’t worth it.”

“Worth what?”

“Marrying. A woman’s got a square deal coming to her, and she doesn’t always get it.”

“She’d get it with you, and she’d get it with me; you know that, Tommy.”

“She might,” said Tommy pessimistically, “if the good Lord helped us.”

Nannie on the day after her break with Dick was blushingly aware of the bareness of her third finger as she took Kingdon Knox’s dictation. When he had finished his letters, Knox smiled at her. “So you gave it back,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Good little girl. You’ll find something much better if you wait. And I don’t want you wasted.” He opened a drawer and took out a long box. He opened it and lifted a string of beads. They were of carved ivory, and matched the cream of Nannie’s complexion. They were strung strongly on a thick thread of scarlet silk, and there was a scarlet tassel at the end.

“They are for you,” he said. “It is my first Christmas present to you; but I hope it won’t be the last.”

Nannie’s heart beat so that she could almost hear it. “Oh, thank you,” she said breathlessly; “they’re so beautiful.”

But she did not know how rare they were, nor how expensive until she wore them in Mary’s room that night.

“Where did you get them, Nannie?”

“Mr. Knox gave them to me.”

There was dead silence, then Mary said: “Nannie, you ought not to take them.”

“Why not?”

“They cost such an awful lot, Nannie. They look simple, but they aren’t. The carving is exquisite.”

“Well, he gave you beads, Mary.”

Mary’s face was turned away. “It was different. I have been such a long time in the office.”

“I don’t think it is much different, and I don’t see how I can give them back, Mary.”

Mary did not argue, but when a little later Nannie told of her broken engagement, Mary said sharply: “But, Nannie–why?”

“Well, mother doesn’t care much for the idea. She–she thinks a girl is much better off to keep on at the office.”

Mary was lying in her long chair under the lamp. She had a cushion under her head, and her hand shaded her eyes. “Did–Mr. Knox have anything to do with it?”

“What makes you ask that, Mary?”

“Did he?”

“Well, yes. You know what I told you; he thinks I’d be–wasted.”

“On Dick?”

“Yes.”

Mary lay for a long time with her hand over her eyes; then she said: “If you don’t marry Dick, what about your future, Nannie?”

“There’s time enough to think about that. And–and I can wait.”

“For what?”

Nannie blushed and laughed a little. “Prince Charming.”