The Black Bag by Vance, Louis Joseph, 1879-1933

"What--again?"

"The truth--the truth is, if you will have it, that I am in danger of arrest the moment I leave here. If my daughter is with me, she will have to endure the shame and humiliation--"

"Then why place her in such a position?" Kirkwood demanded sharply.

Calendar's eyes burned, incandescent with resentment. Offended, he offered to rise and go, but changed his mind and sat tight in hope.

"I beg of you, sir--"

"One moment, Mr. Calendar."

Abruptly Kirkwood's weathercock humor shifted--amusement yielding to intrigued interest. After all, why not oblige the fellow? What did anything matter, now? What harm could visit him if he yielded to this corpulent adventurer's insistence? Both from experience and observation he knew this for a world plentifully peopled by soldiers of fortune, contrivers of snares and pitfalls for the feet of the unwary. On the other hand, it is axiomatic that a penniless man is perfectly safe anywhere. Besides, there was the girl to be considered.

Kirkwood considered her, forthwith. In the process thereof, his eyes sought her, perturbed. Their glances clashed. She looked away hastily, crimson to her temples.

Instantly the conflict between curiosity and caution, inclination and distrust, was at an end. With sudden compliance, the young man rose.

"I shall be most happy to be of service to your daughter, Mr. Calendar," he said, placing the emphasis with becoming gravity. And then, the fat adventurer leading the way, Kirkwood strode across the room--wondering somewhat at himself, if the whole truth is to be disclosed.

III

CALENDAR'S DAUGHTER

All but purring with satisfaction and relief, Calendar halted.

"Dorothy, my dear, permit me to introduce an old friend--Mr. Kirkwood. Kirkwood, this is my daughter."

"Miss Calendar," acknowledged Kirkwood.

The girl bowed, her eyes steady upon his own. "Mr. Kirkwood is very kind," she said gravely.

"That's right!" Calendar exclaimed blandly. "He's promised to see you home. Now both of you will pardon my running away, I know."

"Yes," assented Kirkwood agreeably.

The elder man turned and hurried toward the main entrance.

Kirkwood took the chair he had vacated. To his disgust he found himself temporarily dumb. No flicker of thought illuminated the darkness of his confusion. How was he to open a diverting conversation with a young woman whom he had met under auspices so extraordinary? Any attempt to gloze the situation, he felt, would be futile. And, somehow, he did not care to render himself ridiculous in her eyes, little as he knew her.

Inanely dumb, he sat watching her, smiling fatuously until it was borne in on him that he was staring like a boor and grinning like an idiot. Convinced, he blushed for himself; something which served to make him more tongue-tied than ever.

As for his involuntary protegee, she exhibited such sweet composure that he caught himself wondering if she really appreciated the seriousness of her parent's predicament; if, for that matter, its true nature were known to her at all. Calendar, he believed, was capable of prevarication, polite and impolite. Had he lied to his daughter? or to Kirkwood? To both, possibly; to the former alone, not improbably. That the adventurer had told him the desperate truth, Kirkwood was quite convinced; but he now began to believe that the girl had been put off with some fictitious explanation. Her tranquillity and self-control were remarkable, otherwise; she seemed very young to possess those qualities in such eminent degree.