If Jessie had turned her fair head to look back as she drove off so
triumphantly with her handsome escort, she would have seen Carey Doyle
scrambling up from the gutter where he had landed after his animated
encounter with Laurier, and shaking his fist after her malevolently,
while curses low and deep shrilled over his lips, and his eyes blazed
with a baleful light that boded no good to those who had aroused his
jealous anger.
Brushing the soil of the gutter from his flashy suit, he shambled
across the pavement and back into the house from which he had been so
vigorously ejected.
Madame Barto herself met him on the threshold, and drew him in,
exclaiming hoarsely:
“Why, Carey, what is the meaning of this? I was just coming into the
hall to see Jessie off on her drive, when I beheld her struggling in
your arms, and the next moment Mr. Laurier grasped you and sent you
spinning down the steps like a top!”
“Laurier! Is that his name, curse him?” grumbled Doyle, rubbing his
knee which seemed to have been crippled by the fall, and continuing
excitedly, “It was this way, Aunt Barto: I fell in love with pretty
little Jessie the minute I clapped my eyes on her yesterday, the
beggarly little minx, and when I did her the good turn to send her
to you, of course I meant to have my innings for the good deed. This
afternoon I spruced up in my very best and came to take her for a
walk, but as soon as I came in and asked her, she tossed up her yellow
head like a princess and said she had another engagement. My temper
flared up and I said she should go with me and give me a kiss into the
bargain, but when I grabbed her she fought like a little cat, and then
that dandy rushed in like a whirlwind, caught me up with the strength
of ten men and pitched me down the steps, rolling me into the gutter
and nearly breaking every bone in my body, ugh!” with another groan.
“But, Carey, I thought you were courting that little Jewess, Yetta
Stein.”
“So I am, and have bought the ring, but it’s all up with that since
I’ve seen Jessie. Besides, Yetta’s family were bent on making me
embrace the Jewish religion before the knot was tied, so I can refuse
to do it and break off that way.”
“You mean to say you’ll throw over the match with the rich pawnbroker’s
daughter for the sake of this beggar, Jessie?”
“Yes, I will. I wasn’t thinking at first of marriage, only having some
good times with her, but now that dandified Samson has showed up I’ll
take her from him if I can, just to break his heart as he tried to
break my neck. Curse him!”
“Oh, pshaw, Carey, it’s nonsense of you to think of competing with
a rich young millionaire like Frank Laurier. Why, he never saw her
before to-day, and he must have become quite fascinated with her at
first sight, for he invited her to drive with him in the park this
afternoon.”
Carey Doyle shook his fist and raved impatiently:
“Thunderation! I say he shall not! I’ll follow them to the park,
frighten his horses, and make them run away and break both the
upstarts’ necks.”
“What good would that do, you foolish fellow? Better dismiss them both
from your mind and stick to Yetta.”
“I won’t, so there! I swear to have Jessie Lyndon, by hook or crook!”
“You cannot succeed. I have read both their hands, and if the science
of palmistry is true, which I firmly believe, those two, Laurier, the
millionaire, and Jessie, the little working girl, are meant for each
other by fate.”
“Bah, curse palmistry! Didn’t you read my hand and tell me a pack of
lies?”
“No, I told you that a prison yawned for you, and that only a lawyer’s
quibble would be able to save your neck from the gallows. I begged you
to restrain your evil propensities and try to avert the disaster if you
could! And I read all this written in your hand as plain as print,”
returned the fortune teller solemnly, with full faith in her art; but,
with an oath of incredulous scorn, her nephew limped heavily out of the
house.