The Stratagem and Other Stories

sketching is a nice accomplishment for a young lady, but— His jaw dropped. A thin, graceful pencil sketch it was that he clutched in frenzied fingers; but he could not mistake the subject. “Wretched girl,” he shouted, “where did you get the—the—the—Damn it all, what d'ye call it?—the—ay! that's it!—the model for this vile, filthy, lewd, obscene, lustful thing? Damn it! you're as bad as Cousin Jenny! (Cousin Jenny was a blot on the scutcheon of the Buggs). You're a harlot, miss!” And then, with an awful change as the truth came home to him: “O my God! O my God! Damn it!” he screamed, “how did you get the keys of my little safe?” The girl had frozen colder than the stone, but there was a new light in her eye, and if the curl of a lip could tread a worm into the dust, that lip was hers and that worm the author of her being. She had withdrawn as one who comes suddenly upon a toad, and the first flaming of her face had died instantly to deadlier ice. Bugg saw his mistake, his masses of mistakes. There being but one more to make, he made it; and, finding himself in the frying-pan of discovery, leapt into the fire of things irrevocable and not to be forgotten. His fat, heavy-jowled, coarse face all twitching, he fell on his knees and clasped his hands together. “So you found me out? Don't, don't give away your poor old father, Gertie! My little Gertie!” There was a silence. “Excuse me, father,” said the girl at last, “but I've just had a glimpse of you for the first time in my life, and it's a bit of a shock. I must think.” And she stood motionless until her hapless father at- tracted her attention by backing into his wicker chair. “Don't touch holy things,” she snapped suddenly, taking the sketch from his nerveless hand, and replacing it rev- erently in the portfolio. The action seemed to decide her.