He turned to the door, and the benevolent expression once more wandered athwart his face.
“Extremely kind of Mr. Peters!” he said. “Really, there is something almost Oriental in the lavish generosity of our American cousins.”
…
It had taken R. Jones just six hours to discover Joan Valentine’s address. That it had not taken him longer is a proof of his energy and of the excellence of his system of obtaining information; but R. Jones, when he considered it worth his while, could be extremely energetic, and he was a past master at the art of finding out things.
He poured himself out of his cab and rang the bell of Number Seven. A disheveled maid answered the ring.
“Miss Valentine in?”
“Yes, sir.”
R. Jones produced his card.
“On important business, tell her. Half a minute–I’ll write it.”
He wrote the words on the card and devoted the brief period of waiting to a careful scrutiny of his surroundings. He looked out into the court and he looked as far as he could down the dingy passage; and the conclusions he drew from what he saw were complimentary to Miss Valentine.
“If this girl is the sort of girl who would hold up Freddie’s letters,” he mused, “she wouldn’t be living in a place like this. If she were on the make she would have more money than she evidently possesses. Therefore, she is not on the make; and I am prepared to bet that she destroyed the letters as fast as she got them.”
Those were, roughly, the thoughts of R. Jones as he stood in the doorway of Number Seven; and they were important thoughts inasmuch as they determined his attitude toward Joan in the approaching interview. He perceived that this matter must be handled delicately–that he must be very much the gentleman. It would be a strain, but he must do it.
The maid returned and directed him to Joan’s room with a brief word and a sweeping gesture.
“Eh?” said R. Jones. “First floor?”
“Front,” said the maid.
R. Jones trudged laboriously up the short flight of stairs. It was very dark on the stairs and he stumbled. Eventually, however, light came to him through an open door. Looking in, he saw a girl standing at the table. She had an air of expectation; so he deduced that he had reached his journey’s end.
“Miss Valentine?”
“Please come in.”
R. Jones waddled in.
“Not much light on your stairs.”
“No. Will you take a seat?”
“Thanks.”
One glance at the girl convinced R. Jones that he had been right. Circumstances had made him a rapid judge of character, for in the profession of living by one’s wits in a large city the first principle of offense and defense is to sum people up at first sight. This girl was not on the make.
Joan Valentine was a tall girl with wheat-gold hair and eyes as brightly blue as a November sky when the sun is shining on a frosty world. There was in them a little of November’s cold glitter, too, for Joan had been through much in the last few years; and experience, even though it does not harden, erects a defensive barrier between its children and the world.
Her eyes were eyes that looked straight and challenged. They could thaw to the satin blue of the Mediterranean Sea, where it purrs about the little villages of Southern France; but they did not thaw for everybody. She looked what she was–a girl of action; a girl whom life had made both reckless and wary–wary of friendly advances, reckless when there was a venture afoot.
Her eyes, as they met R. Jones’ now, were cold and challenging. She, too, had learned the trick of swift diagnosis of character, and what she saw of R. Jones in that first glance did not impress her favorably.
“You wished to see me on business?”
“Yes,” said R. Jones. “Yes…. Miss Valentine, may I begin by begging you to realize that I have no intention of insulting you?”
Joan’s eyebrows rose. For an instant she did her visitor the injustice of suspecting that he had been dining too well.