The Face and the Mask by Robert Barr (beach read book txt) 📖

When John Armstrong stepped off the train at the Union Station, in Toronto, Canada, and walked outside, a small boy accosted him.

“Carry your valise up for you, sir?”

“No, thank you,” said Mr. Armstrong.

“Carry it up for ten cents, sir?”

“No.”

“Take it up for five cents, sir?”

“Get out of my way, will you?”

The boy got out of the way, and John Armstrong carried the valise himself.

There was nearly half a million dollars in it, so Mr. Armstrong thought it best to be his own porter.

In the bay window of one of the handsomest residences in Rochester, New York, sat Miss Alma Temple, waiting for her father to come home from the bank. Mr. Horace Temple was one of the solid men of Rochester, and was president of the Temple National Bank. Although still early in December, the winter promised to be one of the most severe for many years, and the snow lay crisp and hard on the streets, but not enough for sleighing. It was too cold for snow, the weatherwise said. Suddenly Miss Alma drew back from the window with a quick flush on her face that certainly was not caused by the coming of her father. A dapper young man sprang lightly up the steps, and pressed the electric button at the door. When the young man entered the room a moment later Miss Alma was sitting demurely by the open fire. He advanced quickly toward her, and took both her outstretched hands in his. Then, furtively looking around the room, he greeted her still more affectionately, in a manner that the chronicler of these incidents, is not bound to particularize. However, the fact may be mentioned that whatever resistance the young woman thought fit to offer was of the faintest and most futile kind, and so it will be understood, at the beginning, that these two young persons had a very good understanding with each other.

“You seem surprised to see me,” he began.

“Well, Walter, I understood that you left last time with some energetically expressed resolutions never to darken our doors again.”

“Well, you see, my dear, I am sometimes a little hasty; and, in fact, the weather is so dark nowadays, anyhow, that a little extra darkness does not amount to much, and so I thought I would take the risk of darkening them once more.”

“But I also understood that my father made you promise, or that you promised voluntarily, not to see me again without his permission?”

“Not voluntarily. Far from it. Under compulsion, I assure you. But I didn’t come to see you at all. That’s where you are mistaken. The seeing you is merely an accident, which I have done my best to avoid. Fact! The girl said, ‘Won’t you walk into the drawing-room,’ and naturally I did so. Never expected to find you here. I thought I saw a young lady at the window as I came up, but I got such a momentary glimpse that I might have been mistaken.”

“Then I will leave you and not interrupt——”

“Not at all. Now I beg of you not to leave on my account,