Jackson Gregory

“ And then he turned his eyes away from her.
“Audrey Ruud,” he said, almost sternly to keep from saying it entirely sentimentally, “you are driving me to distraction. I'd rather kiss you good night than own the Great Golconda. And—”
“Then why don't you do it?” coaxingly.
“Because I haven't any right to. Because I'm a sort of a sheep in wolf's clothing. Because—oh, just because my name is John Rand.” And then quickly, as he saw the distress coming back into her eyes: “Will you explain to me why my shoes don't fit me?” ”

“ III IT was all confusion to John Rand. He knew that they had gone into a night court; he knew that his lawyers, Jasper Ruud's lawyers, had appeared; and that there had been money spent. He had heard something about a warrant for a man's murder being no warrant at all when the man who was supposed to have been murdered hadn't died, but was sitting up eating soft-boiled eggs. It appeared that a case of assault with a billiard cue was a matter which with money and management might be relegated to the domain of things of no moment. ”

“ He did not want to accuse her brother of the thing that Jasper Ruud had done, he did not want to show her that if her brother were not guilty of murder he was none the less guilty of a cowardly and mean action. So he said nothing about the meeting in the freight yards. But he told her how he had gone to the police station and how he had been seized, how the whole thing was an absurd mistake, how he was John Rand, a mining engineer but lately returned from South America, how he had lost what money he had there, and being anxious to get on to New York had “beat his way.” ”