Mona Part 3

He drew forth a wallet filled with bills, and began to count out the sum he had named.

"Wait a moment," said Mrs. Bently, the color mounting to her temples; "I have a handsome case for the ornaments. I will go and get it for you."

She turned suddenly and vanished from his presence, before he could tell her he would rather take them in the little box.

"How sensitive the poor child is!" he murmured, with a tender smile; "she could not even bear to see me count out the money."

Mrs. Bently soon returned with a handsome morocco case in her hands.

"They look better in this," she remarked, as she lifted the lid, and revealed the crescents lying upon a rich black velvet bed; "and," with a nervous little laugh, "now that I know they are genuine, I really am very loath to part with them, in spite of my necessity."

She closed the case with a snap, and pa.s.sed it to him, and he slipped a roll of crisp bank-bills into her hand.

"This arrangement will smooth all difficulties, I trust," he said, "and now," with a slight tremor in his voice, "I have a special favor to ask.

May I come to see you at No. 10 ---- street?"

"Certainly, you may, Mr. Cutler," she replied, lifting a bright, eager face to him, "and I a.s.sure you I shall have a warmer welcome for no one else. I cannot tell you how grateful I am--"

"Do not speak of that," he interposed. "I am amply repaid for anything I have done by seeing the look of trouble gone from your face. I must bid you good morning now, but I shall give myself the pleasure of calling upon you very soon."

He held out his hand to her, and she laid hers within it. He was surprised to find it icy cold and trembling, but he attributed it to emotion caused by the parting with him.

"Then I shall only say _au revoir_," she responded, smiling.

She looked so lovely that he longed to draw her within his arms and take a more tender leave of her, but again putting a curb upon himself, he simply bowed, and left her, when with a quick, elastic step, she swept up stairs to her own apartments.

Justin Cutler was very busy all the morning, and did not find time to go to the jeweler's until the afternoon.

He had no intention of disposing of the crescents--he simply wished to tell him that he had himself concluded to purchase them, and then ask the privilege of depositing them in Mr. Arnold's safe for a few days; for they were to be his gift to the woman he loved, if she received his suit with favor.

The gentleman was in, and his eyes lighted as his glance fell upon the case which Mr. Cutler laid upon the show-case, for he believed that, in purchasing the crescents, he was going to get an unusually good bargain.

"Ah," he remarked, "the lady has decided to dispose of the stones?"

"Yes; but--" Mr. Cutler began, when he suddenly stopped, and gazed, astonished, at the man.

He had taken the case, opened it, and started in dismay as he saw what were within, while a look of blank consternation overspread his face.

Then he turned sternly, almost fiercely, upon the young man.

"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, in a threatening tone. "Did you imagine you could cheat me in this miserable way? You have got hold of the wrong customer if you did."

"What do you mean, sir?" inquired Mr. Cutler, amazed, but flus.h.i.+ng angrily at being addressed so uncivilly.

"These are not the stones you brought to me yesterday," said Mr. Arnold, who was also very angry.

"Sir!" exclaimed Justin Cutler, aghast, but with haughty mien.

"They are nothing but paste," continued the jeweler, eyeing the beautiful crescents with disdain; "and," he added, menacingly, "I've a mind to have you arrested on the spot for attempting to obtain money under false pretenses."

Mr. Cutler grew pale at this with mingled anger and a sudden fear.

He reached across the counter and took the case from Mr. Arnold's hand.

He turned the stones to the light.

At the first glance they seemed to be all right--he could detect nothing wrong; for aught that he could see the crescents were the same which he had submitted to the merchant the day before. But as he studied them more closely the gleam of the gems was entirely different--the fire of the genuine diamond was lacking.

"Can it be possible that I have been duped, swindled?" he exclaimed, with white lips and a sinking heart.

"I should say, rather, that you were attempting to dupe and swindle some one else," sarcastically retorted the diamond dealer. "The stones are a remarkably fine imitation, I am free to confess, and would easily deceive a casual observer; but if you have ever tried and succeeded in this clever game before, you are certainly caught this time."

"Mr. Arnold, I a.s.sure you that I am blameless in this matter--that I honestly believed the jewels to be the same that I brought to you yesterday," the young man said, with an earnest directness which convinced the gentleman that he spoke the truth. "I see now," he continued, "that they are not; and"--a feeling of faintness almost overpowering him as he realized all that this experience would cost him, aside from his pecuniary loss--"I have been outrageously deceived and hoodwinked, for I have already advanced the sum you named to the woman who wished to dispose of the diamonds."

Mr. Arnold searched the manly face before him, and was forced to believe in the truth of his statements.

"If that is so, then you have indeed been wretchedly swindled," he said; "for these crescents are but duplicates in paste of those I examined yesterday. How did you happen to be so taken in?"

Mr. Cutler briefly related the circ.u.mstances, and when he concluded, Mr.

Arnold remarked:

"The woman was an accomplished cheat, and led you on very adroitly. Your mistake was in advancing the money for the stones; if you had brought these things to me first, you would have saved yourself this loss. But of course she never would have allowed that; her game was to get the money from you, and she worked you finely for it."

Mr. Cutler groaned in spirit as he realized it all, and how he had tied his own hands by what he had written on the card that he had given to the wily woman.

He kept this portion of the transaction to himself, however; he could not confess how foolishly weak he had been. Surely his infatuation for the beautiful widow had led him beyond all bounds of common sense and good judgment; but he had no one but himself to blame, and he must bear his loss as best he could. His lost faith in womanhood was the heaviest part of it.

"I sincerely regret having put you to so much trouble, Mr. Arnold," he courteously remarked, as he closed the jewel-case and put it out of sight, "and as a favor, I would ask that you regard this matter as strictly confidential. I have been miserably fooled, and met with a heavy loss, but I do not wish all Chicago to ring with the story."

"You may trust me, and accept my a.s.surance that I am sincerely sorry for you," the jeweler returned, in a tone of sympathy, and now entirely convinced of the honesty of the young man. "And let me tell you,"

he added, "for your personal benefit, while examining those crescents yesterday, I put a private mark on the back of the settings with a steel-pointed instrument; it was like this"--making a cipher on a card and pa.s.sing it to him. "If you should ever be fortunate enough to come across them again, you could identify them by it."

"Thank you," Mr. Cutler returned, as he put it carefully away.

Then he wished the gentleman a polite good-day, and went out of the store, a wiser, but a somewhat poorer, man than he had been the previous day.

He was almost crushed by the wrong which had been perpetrated against him. He had been thoroughly and artfully deceived. Mrs. Bently--if indeed that was her real name, which he doubted--had seemed such a modest and una.s.suming woman, so frank, and sweet, and ingenuous, that he would have indignantly resented it had any one hinted to him that she was not all that she appeared to be.

He had never met any woman who possessed such power to charm him, and yet she had never seemed to seek his notice--had never appeared to thrust herself upon him in any way. He had instead sought _her_ and been especially attracted to her by the very simplicity and naturalness of her deportment; and this rude awakening to the fact of her duplicity was therefore far more bitter than the loss of his money, although that was considerable.

He was greatly depressed, but, on leaving Mr. Arnold's store, he proceeded directly to the street and number which she had given as her future place of residence. It proved to be an empty house with the sign "To Rent" staring at him from several windows.

He next sought for the lawyer who, Mrs. Bently had told him, had conducted her business affairs. There was no such person to be found.

Then, his indignation getting the better of his grief and disappointment, he sought a detective, told his story, and gave the case into his hands.

"Keep the matter quiet, Rider," he said, "but spare no expense to find the woman. If she is a professional thief, she will try the same trick on some one else; and though we may not be able to bring her to justice in this case, since I so rashly tied my hands by giving her that writing, yet I should like to give my evidence against her for the benefit of some other unfortunate victim."