Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/136

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der and leaned almost affectionately against his neck.

Now as Harrington stepped out upon the pavement, who should come striding along but Count Eckstrom—in golfing cap and knickers—to the links, perhaps, to meet Miss Billie Boland, quite evidently pleasure-bound. Rather to Henry's surprise, the count recognized him, although when they met last Harrington had been a sartorial wreck with a pyramidal bandage upon his head.

"You are a burden bearer, this morning, Mr. Harrington, I perceive," observed the count facetiously, pausing to offer a lofty and elegant clasp of his soft hand.

To take that hand, Henry had to shift his hold upon the ear of the coin sack, but he managed this. "Yes; that's my station in life," he bandied. "You belong to what we in America call the idle rich, I take it."

"Idle, but not rich," discriminated the count with a smile, and lightly detaching his fingers from Harrington's grasp, as though they had been held a little too close, he moved on at that unhurried but also unloitering stride which is supposed to distinguish the carriage of a gentleman.

As the car spun out along the Basin road, the blue water of South Inlet lay like a band of turquoise between sheets of emerald and the fragrance of the forest tingled in Henry's nostrils as zest for his duty and his opportunity tingled in his veins.

Three satisfactions warmed his breast: first, that he was going to do this thing for the Boland interests who were trusting him so largely and compensating him so generously; second, that he was going to do something nice for old Adam John, even over Adam John's