He had
trusted the man in many ways and found him honest. One trifling proof
of this was perhaps the main reason of Thord's further reliance upon
him; he had fulfilled his half-suggested promise to bring the sunshine
of prosperity into the hard-working, and more or less sordid life of
the little dancing-girl, Pequita. She had been sent for one morning by
the manager of the Royal Opera, who having seen the ease, grace, and
dexterity of her performance, forthwith engaged her for the entire
season at a salary which when named to the amazed child, seemed like a
veritable shower of gold tumbling by rare chance out of the lap of Dame
Fortune. The manager was a curt, cold business man, and she was afraid
to ask him any questions, for when the words--"I am sure a kind friend
has spoken to you of me--" came timidly from her lips, he had shut up
her confidence at once by the brief answer--
"No. You are mistaken. We accept no personal recommendations. We only
employ proved talent!"
All the same Pequita felt sure that she owed the sudden lifting of her
own and her father's daily burden of life, to the unforgetting care and
intercession of Leroy. Lotys was equally convinced of the same, and
both she and Sergius Thord highly appreciated their new associate's
unobtrusive way of doing good, as it were, by stealth.
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