by Berta Ruck
CHAPTER XXX
OUT ON BAIL
THERE!
The much-dreaded ordeal is over.
That is, it is over for the present. For we have been committed fortrial, and that trial is still to come.
We shall have to go on living somehow under a cloud of the blackestsuspicion. But there's one ray of comfort that I find among the inkygloom of my (mental) surroundings.
At least, there isn't going to be any more prison cell for us to-night!At least, I shall have a long and perfect and much-needed sleep in mydelightfully luxurious white bed at the Hotel Cecil.
For that's where we've returned for the day, to pack up a few morethings before we accept Miss Vi Vassity's kindly invitation and returnto the "Refuge"--a refuge indeed!
It's too good of her to welcome two suspect characters such as my youngmistress and me among her professional friends.
The Breathing Statue, the Boy-Impersonator, the Serio, theemerald-green-tighted Acrobat Lady--these all dwell on the heights ofrespectability as far as their private characters are concerned.
Of course, Marmora, the Twentieth-Century Hebe, is an arrant flirt, buta girl may be that and a model of propriety at the same time. This touchof nature never fails to exasperate, for some reason, any of the menwho know her. The Ventriloquist's wife and the understudy to "Cigarette"in the Number Eleven Company of "Under Two Flags," there isn't a singleword to be said against any of them!
But what are we?
Two alleged jewel thieves, out on bail! And even then Mrs. Rattenheimerprotested loudly in court against "those two young women" being givenbail at all!
By that time Miss Million and I were so utterly crushed by all that hadgone before that I verily believe neither of us felt that we deserved tobe let out at large--no, not even though three of our friends weresureties for us to the tune of L300 each!
I have come to the conclusion that it takes a born criminal to act andlook like a perfectly innocent person when charged with a crime!
It's the perfectly innocent person who looks the picture of guilt!
At least I know that's what poor little Miss Million looked like as shestood beside me in the dock this morning.
Her little face was as white as her handkerchief, her grey eyes wereshrunk and red with crying and want of sleep. Her hair was "anyhow." Hersmall figure seemed more insignificant than ever.
All the confidence with which she'd faced the wardress last night seemedto have evaporated in those hours of wakeful tossing on that vilelyuncomfortable prison bed. She trembled and shook. She held on to thebar of the dock just as a very sea-sick passenger holds on to thesteamer rail. She picked at her gloves, she nervously smoothed thecreases in her pink, Bond Street tub-frock.
When the magistrate addressed her she started and gulped, and murmured"Sir" in the most utterly stricken voice I ever heard.
Altogether, if ever a young woman did look as if her sins had found herout, Miss Nellie Million, charged with stealing a valuable ruby pendant,the property of Mr. Julius Rattenheimer, looked the part at that moment.
I don't wonder the magistrate rasped at her.
As for me, I don't think I looked quite as frightened. You can't be atthe same moment frightened and very angry.
I felt like murder; whom I should have wished to murder I don't quiteknow--the owner of the ruby alone would not have been enough for me. Iwas inwardly foaming with rage over having been forced into this idioticposition also for having been made, not only mentally, but physicallyand acutely uncomfortable.
This is only one detail of the discomfort, but this may serve to sum upthe rest; for the very first time in the whole of my life I'd had to gowithout my morning bath, and to stand fully dressed, but with theconsciousness of being untubbed and unscrubbed, facing the world!
There was such a horrible lot of the world to face, too, in that awfulpolice-court, where the windows were steaming and opaque, and the wallsclammy as those of an uncared-for country vestry!
The place seemed crowded with all sorts and conditions of men and women,lumped together, so to speak, in Fate's lucky-bag. And it was only afterI'd given two or three resentful glances about that stuffy cave of aplace that I recognised among all the strangers the faces of the peoplewho'd come to back up Miss Million and me.
First and foremost, of course, there sat, as close to us as she couldmanage to get herself placed, the sumptuous, peg-top-shaped, white-cladfigure of London's Love, Miss Vi Vassity, with her metallic hair.
She kissed her plump hand to us with effusion, waving encouragingly tous with her big gold mesh bag and all its glittering, clashingattachments: the cigarette case, the lip-salve tube, the gold pencil,the memorandum tablets, the Darin powder-box, the card-case, theSwastika, the lucky pig, the touchwood, the gold-tipped coral charm, thethreepenny bit, and all the other odd things that rattled and jingledtogether like a pedlar's cart, making an unearthly stir in court.
From where I stood I could see two men sketching the owner of all thisclatter!
Close beside her sat Mr. Hiram P. Jessop, very boyish, very grave; hiswell-cut Dana-Gibson mouth seeming to be permanently set into theexclamation, "Preppassterous!" and his serious eyes fastened on histrembling little cousin in the dock.
The Honourable James Burke sat behind them. All the policemen andofficials, I noticed, were being as pleasant and deferential to thatyoung scamp as if he were at least a judge, instead of a person whoought by rights to be locked up in the interests of the public!
To the right of him sat the author of all our troubles, Mr. JuliusRattenheimer.
I suppose all German Jews aren't odious! I suppose all German Jewsaren't thick-nosed and oily skinned, with eyes like two blackberriessunk very deep in a pan of dough! I suppose they don't all run to"bulges" inside their waistcoats and over their collars, and above andbelow their flashing rings? I suppose they don't all talk with theirhands?
No, I suppose it isn't fair to judge the whole race by one specimen.
He became wildly excited during the proceedings. Four or five times heinterrupted the reading of the charge. He gesticulated, pointing at MissMillion, and crying: "Yes! Yes! She's in the pay of this udder one. Doyou see? This girl Smith, that we find out has an assumed name, vot?Easy to see who is the head of the firma----
"Yes; she is the beauty vot would not have her boxes looked at. Comingto a hotel mit empty boxes, vot does that look like, yes? Two younggirls, very shabby, and presently tog demselves out in the mostsexbensive clothes. How they get them, no?"
The magistrate broke in severely with something about "What Mr.Rattenheimer had to say would be attended to presently."
"I say get the girl, and do not let her to be at large whoever say theywill pay for her. Get this woman Lovelace; she is the one we want,"vociferated the awful little Hebrew; a little later on I think it was,but the whole police-court scene is one hideous confusion to me now."Don't let her to esgabe through our hands, this girl, BeatriceLovelace----"
My name, my real name, seemed to echo and resound all through thatdreadful place. I didn't know before that I had always, at the bottom ofmy heart, been proud of the old name.
Yes! Even if it has been brought down to belonging to a family ofnouveaux-pauvres, who are neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring. Evenif it is like having a complete motoring-kit, and no earthly chance ofever possessing a motor to wear it in!
Even so, it's a name that belonged to generation after generation ofbrave fighters; men who have served under Nelson and Wellington, Cliveand Roberts!
It's their blood, theirs and that of the women who loved them, that ranhot and angry in my veins to-day, flushing my cheeks with scarlet furyto hear that name profaned in the mouth of a little stuttering,jewel-grabbing alien, who's never had a sword, or even a rifle, in hishand!
I turned my indignant eyes from him. And my eyes met, across the court,the eyes of another woman who wears the name of Lovelace!
Heavens! There was my Aunt Anastasia, sitting bolt upright in thegallery and listening to the case. Her face was whiter than Million's,and her lips were an almost imperceptible line across it!
How did she know? How had she come there? I didn't at that momentrealise the truth--namely, that the Scotland Yard officials had beenbusy with their inquiries, not only at what Miss Million calls the Hotel"Sizzle," but also at what used to be my home at No. 45 Laburnum Grove,Putney, S.W.
Poor Aunt Anastasia, hearing that her niece was "wanted by the police"for robbery, must have received a shock forty times worse than that ofmy letter informing her that I had become our ex-servant's maid!
But, as I say, here she was in court ... seeing the pair of us in thedock, listening to the account of the circumstances that really did lookblack against us.
Oh, that unfortunate flight of Miss Million's into Sussex! That stillmore unfortunate flight of her maid's after her, leaving no address!
Aunt Anastasia, in pale horror, was listening to it all. That was thelast straw.
It seemed to me nothing after that when, from where I stood tense in thedock, I recognised in the blurred pink speckle of faces against thegrimy walls of the court the face of another person that I knew.
A blonde, manly face, grave as that of the young American, but with aless unself-conscious gravity.
The face of Mr. Reginald Brace, the manager of Miss Million's bank, whowants to be the manager of me--no! I mustn't make these cheap jokesabout the steady and sterling and utterly English character of the youngman who loves me and who wishes--still wishes!--to marry me.
For he has behaved in a way that ought to take any wish to make jokesabout him away from any girl!
He has been so splendid--so "decent"!
You know, when bail was asked for, he stepped forward--he who is usuallyso deliberate in his movements!--quite as quickly as the Honourable Jim.How he--the Honourable Jim--had L300 to dispose of at a moment's noticeis one of these mysteries that I suppose I never shall solve.
Still, he is one of the sureties for us, and my Mr. Brace is another.The third is Miss Vi Vassity, who produced, "to dazzle the old boy," arustling sheaf of notes and a sliding, gleaming handful of sovereignsfrom the gold mesh bag, as well as her blue cheque-book and a smile thatwas a perfect guarantee of opulence.
Let me see, what came next? We were "released," of course, and Iremember standing on the pavement outside the doors of that detestableplace, I still holding Miss Million mechanically by the arm and findingourselves the centre of a group of our friends.
The group surrounding us two criminals on the pavement outside thepolice-court consisted of Miss Vi Vassity, who was very showy, cheery,and encouraging; Mr. Hiram P. Jessop, very protective of his cousin; theHonourable James Burke; Mr. Brace, and one or two theatrical people whohad recognised London's Love, and had come over to exchange loudgreetings with her.
On the outskirts of this talking, gesticulating crowd of people thereappeared a tall, rigidly erect feminine figure in grey tweed, and ablack hat that managed to be at the same time unutterably frumpy and"the hat of a lady."
It was, of course, the hat of my Aunt Anastasia. Over the upholsteredshoulder of Miss Million's American cousin I caught her eye. I then sawher thin lips pronouncing my name:
"Beatrice."
I moved away from Mr. Burke, who was standing very close to me, and wentup to her. What to say to her I did not know.
But she spoke first, in the very quiet, very concentrated tone of voicethat she always used in the old days when I was "in for a row."
"Beatrice, you will come home with me at once."
It was not so much an order as a stated fact. People who put theirwishes in that way are not accustomed to be disobeyed.
My Aunt Anastasia didn't think for one moment that I should disobey her.She imagined that I should at once leave this crowd of extraordinarypeople, for I saw her glance of utter disapproval sweeping them all! Sheimagined that I should return with her to the little nouveau-pauvrevilla at Putney and listen like a lamb to all she had to say.
Six months ago I should have done this, of course. But now--too much hadhappened in between. I had seen too many other people, too many aspectsof life that was not the tiny stereoscopic view of things as they appearto the Aunt Anastasias of this world.
I realised that I was a woman, and that this other woman, who haddominated me for so long, had no claim upon me now.
I said gently and quietly, but quite firmly: "I am very sorry, AuntAnastasia, but I can't come just now."
"What do you mean, Beatrice?" this icily. "You don't seem to see thatyou are singularly fortunate in having a home still open to you," saidmy aunt. "After the disgrace that you have brought, this morning, uponour family----"
"What's all this? What's all this?" broke in the cheerful, unabashedvoice of Miss Vi Vassity.
That lady had broken away from her theatrical friends--young men withsoft hats and clean-cut features--and, accompanied by her usualinevitable jingle of gold hanging charms and toys and knick-knacks--hadturned to me.
She caught my arm in her plump, white-gloved hand and beamedgood-naturedly upon my frozen aunt.
"Who's your lady friend, Smithie, my dear?" demanded London's Love, whohad never looked more showily vulgar.
The grimy background of street and police-court walls seemed to throw upthe sudden ins-and-outs of her sumptuous, rather short-legged figure,topped by that glittering hair and finished off by a pair offantastically high-heeled French boots of the finest and whitest kid.
No wonder my fastidious aunt gazed upon her with that petrified look!
London's Love didn't seem to see it. She went on gaily: "Didn't halffill the stalls, our party this morning, what, what? Might have been'some' divorce case! Now for a spot of lunch to wash it all down. We'reall going on to the Cecil. Come on, Jim," to Mr. Burke.
"Come on--I didn't catch your boy's name, Miss Smith--yours, I mean,"tapping the arm of Mr. Reginald Brace, who looked very nearly as frozenas my aunt herself. "Still, you'll come. And you, dear?"
This to no less a person than Miss Anastasia Lovelace.
"This is my aunt, Miss Lovelace," I put in hurriedly. "Aunt Anastasia,this is Miss Vassity, who, as you said, was kind enough to--to go bailfor us just now in court----"
The bend of my aunt's neck and frumpy hat towards Miss Vi Vassity wassomething more crushingly frigid than the cut direct would have been.
Still London's Love took it all in good part; holding out that plumpwhite paw of hers, and taking my aunt's untendered hand warmly into herown.
"Pleased to meet you," she said heartily. "Your little niece here is agreat pal o' mine. I was sorry to see her in a mess. Shockin' naughtygirl, though, isn't she? Nickin' rubies. Tut, tut. Why didn't you bringher up better, eh?" suggested England's Premier Comedienne.
There are absolutely no words to describe the deepening of the horror onpoor Aunt Anastasia's face as she looked and listened and "took in"generally the society in which her only niece found herself!
Miss Vi Vassity's loud, gay tones seemed to permeate that group and thatsituation just as a racing wave ripples over pebbles and seaweed andsand-castles alike.
"Girls will be girls! I never intend to be anything else myself,"announced the artiste joyously. "You're coming along with her,Miss--Lovelace, is it? Pretty stage name that 'ud make, boys. 'Miss LoveLace,' eh? Look dandy on the bills. You'll sit next your young niecehere, and see she don't go slipping any of the spoons off the tableinside her camisole. You never know what's going to go next with thesekleptomaniacs. Er--hur!"
She gave a little exaggerated cough. "I'll have to keep my own eye onthe other jewel thief, Nellie Million--d'you know her?"
Here I saw my aunt's cold, grey eye seeming to go straight through theface and form of the girl who used to be her maid-of-all-work.
Miss Million, in her rather crushed but very "good"-looking pink linengown, held her small head high and glared back defiantly at the
womanwho used to take her to task for having failed to keep a wet cleanhandkerchief over the butter-dish. She (my mistress) seemed to gainconfidence and poise as soon as she stood near the large, grey-cladfigure of her American cousin.
All through this the voice of Miss Vi Vassity rippled on. "I'd betterintroduce the gentleman. This is Mr. Hiram P. Jessop, the inventor. Idon't mean 'liar.' One o' those is enough in a party, eh, Jim? This isthe Honourable Mr. James Burke, of Ballyneck Castle. This is Mr. Brace.Now we're all here; come along----"
"Thank you very much, but I think I will say 'Good morning,'" broke inmy aunt's most destructively polite tones. "Come, Beatrice. I am takingmy niece with me."
Here there occurred that of which I am sure Miss Million has oftendreamed, both when she was a little, twenty-pound-a-yearmaid-of-all-work and lately, since she's been the heiress of a fortune.
She struck!
She, once dependent upon every order from those thin, aristocratic lipsof Miss Anastasia Lovelace's, gave her own order to her own ex-mistress.
"Very sorry, Miss Lovelace, but I can't spare your niece to go with youjust now," she announced, in her "that-settles-it" sounding Cockneyaccent. "I want her to change me for luncheon.
"Friday is her afternoon out," enlarged Miss Million, encouragingherself with an upward glance into the grave, boyish, American face ofher cousin, and speaking more authoritatively still. "I can't have hergallivanting off to you nor to any one else just this minute. It's notconvenient. She's my maid now, you see----"
My aunt's glance was that of a basilisk, her tone like the cut of awhip, as she retorted coldly: "My niece has nothing more to do with you.She will leave you at once. She is no longer in your--your grotesqueservice."
"My service is as good as yours was, and a fat lot better, I can tellyou, Miss Lovelace," riposted my mistress, becoming suddenly shrill andflushed. "I give the girl sixty pounds a year, and take her about withme to all my own friends, same as if she was my sister.
"Yes. You needn't look like that because I do. Ask her. The first timein her life she's ever had a good time is now, since she's been workingfor some one that does realise that a girl's got to have her bit of funand liberty same as everybody else, be she duchess or be shelady's-maid!"
"She is a lady's-maid no longer," said my Aunt Anastasia, in a voicethat shook. The others looked fearfully uncomfortable, all except MissVi Vassity, who seemed to be hanging with the keenest enjoyment uponevery syllable that fell from the lips of the two "opposing parties."
"My niece is no longer a lady's-maid," repeated Aunt Anastasia. "Sheleaves your service here and now."
"Not without notice," said the stubborn Million, in a voice that broughtthe whole of our inconvenient little Putney kitchen before my mentalgaze. Verily she had recovered from her bad attack of stage-fright incourt just before.
"A girl's got to give her month's notice or to give up a month's wages,"said my Aunt Anastasia with a curling lip. "That is easily settled. Myniece is in no need of a month's wages from some one who is--chargedwith common theft----"
"Why, she's 'charged' herself, as far as that goes!" Million gave backquickly. "If I've taken that old ruby, my maid knows all about it, andshe's in it with me! You heard for yourself, Miss Lovelace, what thatold Rattenheimer said in there just now. It's her he suspects--yourniece! It's her he didn't want to let go, bail or no bail!"
What a wrangle!
It was a most inappropriate place for a wrangle, I know. But there theystill stood and wrangled in the open street outside the police-station,ex-mistress and ex-maid, while passers-by stared curiously at them, andI and the three young men stood by, wondering what in the world would besaid next.
"A month's wages, too!" repeated my young mistress, with the snortinglaugh with which she used to rout the butcher-boys of Putney.
"It's a fat lot more than a month's wages that's doo from your niece tome, Miss Lovelace, and so I tell you! Two quarters' salary. That's whatI've advanced my maid, so's she could get herself the sort of rig-outthat she fancied. First time in her life the girl's been turned out likea young lady."
Here Miss Million waved a hand towards my perfectly cut black, taking inevery detail from the small hat to the delight-giving silk stockings andsuede shoes.
"Yes, for all her aristocratic relations they never done that forher--why, you know what a pretty girl you said she was, Vi"--turningupon London's Love, who nodded appreciatively.
"Well, you wouldn't ha' known her if you'd seen her in any old duds likeshe used to have to wear when she was only 'my niece'"--here avindictive and quite good imitation of my Aunt Anastasia's voice.
"Now there's some shape in her"--this is good, from Million, who'spicked up everything about clothes from me!--"and who's she got to thankfor it? Me, and my good wages," concluded my mistress, with unction."Me, and my thirty pounds that I advanced her in the first week. Shecan't go----"
"I don't want to!" I put in, but Miss Million grimaced me into silence.She meant to have her say, her own, long-deferred say, out.
"She can't go without she pays up what's owing to me first," declared mymistress triumphantly. "So what's she going to do?"
This certainly was a "poser" to poor Aunt Anastasia.
Full well I knew that she had not thirty pounds in the world that shecould produce at a moment's or even at a month's notice.
Her tiny income is so tied up that she cannot touch the capital. And Iknow that, careful as she is, there is never more than twelve poundsbetween herself and a pauper's grave, so to speak.
I saw her turn a little whiter where she stood. She darted at me aglance of the deadliest reproach. I had brought her to this! To beingworsted by a little jumped-up maid-servant!
Million, I must say, made the most of the situation. "There y'are, yousee," she exulted. "Your niece has gone and spent all that money. Andyou haven't got it to reimburse it. You can't pay up! Ar! Those thatgive 'emselves the airs of being the Prince of Wales and all the RoyalFamily, and there's nothing they can't do--they ought to make sure thatthey have something to back it up with before they start!"
So true! So horribly true--poor Aunt Anastasia!
She said in her controlled voice: "The money shall certainly be paid. Iwill write."
I saw her face a mask of worry, and then she turned away.
As she walked down the street towards the Strand again, I saw her swayonce, a little.
"Oh," I exclaimed involuntarily, "she ought not to walk. I don't believeshe's well. She ought not to be alone, perhaps----"
And I turned to the young man to whom I suppose I have a right to turn,since he has asked me to marry him. At that moment I felt that it wassuch a comfort he was there; steady and reliable and conscientious.
"Mr. Brace!" I appealed to him a little shyly. "If you would be so kind!I wonder if you would mind--I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to takemy aunt home?"
"Oh--er--yes, I should be delighted," said Mr. Brace quickly, butflushing all over his blonde face and looking suddenly and acutelymiserable.
It was a great astonishment to me that the young man wasn't off to carryout this wish of mine before it had finished leaving my lips. Still, itwasn't his fault at all. Oh, no; I see his point of view quite well.
"That is--Do you think, perhaps, that your aunt might not find itdistasteful to be addressed by me? You see the last time she spoke tome, it was--er--not on the friendliest terms, and--er----"
"Aw, look here, Mr. Brace, don't you worry!" broke in the joyously,matter-of-fact voice of London's Love. "You stay with your young ladyand come on to lunch. Her aunt's being attended to all right withoutyou. Look at that!"
"That" was certainly an unexpected scene towards which Miss Vi Vassitywaved her tightly gloved hand.
I gazed in wonder in that direction.
There, on the pavement at the end of the turning into the Strand, stoodthe scraggy, erect, grey-clad, frumpily hatted figure of my AuntAnastasia. And beside her, close beside her, was the Honourable James
Burke! He must have broken away from the group almost at the moment thatshe did, and gone up to her.
What could he have said?
The "cheek" of that man! Is there anybody that he wouldn't mindtackling?
For he was leaning confidentially towards my so forbidding aunt. He wastalking fluently to her about something. He was smiling down at her--Icaught the curve of his cheek in profile.
And--could it be true?--my Aunt Anastasia actually didn't mind him!
I only saw her back; but you know how expressive backs can be. And theusually rigid, flat shoulders with the Victorian corset-ridge, and thelady-like waist and scarcely existent hips of my aunt were positivelyexpressing mollification, friendliness, gratification!
"The old girl's all right with Jim to look after her," said Miss ViVassity, cheerfully to me, adding, with a large wink: "What worked thetrick with her was the cue 'Ballyneck Castle,' I bet you. Me and Nellieand the rest of us weren't quite class enough for her ladyship. But youcan't go wrong with these old Irish kings! So little known about 'em.Eh, Hiram? There! Milord has got a taxi for Auntie Lovelace"--which wassurprisingly true.
"Got off with her, hasn't he?" laughed London's Love. "S'prised at herat her time o' life. Still, there's no fool like an old fool. I ought toknow; nothing at 85 can resist little Me. Now, then, lunch at last. Iguess you're all fairly perishing."
We were.
But there was one picture that remained with me even after we all got tothe Cecil and the whole party--including Miss Million's maid--weresitting greedily concentrating upon the menu at one of the round tablesin the big dining-room.
This was the picture of my Aunt Anastasia whirling towards Putney inthat taxi--she who never, never can afford the luxury of acab!--accompanied by the Honourable James Burke!
What would that drive be like? What would that unscrupulous youngIrishman say to her, and she to him?
Would she ask him into No. 45? And--would he go?
Would she ask questions about her niece, Miss Million's maid, and wouldhe answer them?
Oh! How I long to know these things! My wish for that is so keen that itcauses me to forget even the black fog of suspicion under which mymistress and I will have to move while we are still "on bail." How Iwish the Honourable Jim would hurry up and come back, just so that Icould hear all about his tete-a-tete with my aunt!
But as it is, there's plenty to occupy me. A delicious lunch before meto make up for no dinner the night before, and a prison breakfast thismorning!
At the head of the table Miss Vi Vassity, with her stream of comment ascheering and bright as the Bubbley in our glasses, which she insisted onstanding all round! Beside me my very eligible and nice would-be fiance,Mr. Reginald Brace, a young man that any girl ought to be glad to besitting next.
I don't mean "ought," of course. I mean "would." I was, I know.
Mr. Brace was so kind, and tried all the time to be so sympathetic andhelpful. I shall never forget his goodness. And he was really mostapologetic about not having rushed to help Aunt Anastasia the minute Isaid anything about it.
"You see, I really think she would have preferred not to speak to me,"he said. Then anxiously: "You are not annoyed with me, Miss Lovelace?You don't feel I could have done anything else?"
"Of course, you couldn't," I said.
"It seems too bad, the first time you asked me to do anything," hemuttered over his plate. "I who want so to do things for you."
"Oh, please don't," I said quickly.
He said: "I am afraid you are a little annoyed with me, Beatrice----"
"Indeed I'm not," I protested through all the racket of Vi Vassity'stalk above the pretty flowery table, "only----"
"Only what?"
"Well, I don't think I said you might call me that," I said, colouring.
He lowered his voice and said earnestly: "Are you going to say I may? Iknow it's not yet quite a week since I asked you. But couldn't I have myanswer before that? I want so to take you away from all these people."
There was an expression of the most ungrateful disgust on his fair,Puritan sort of face as he turned it for a moment from me to that of thebubbling-over music-hall artiste who was his hostess.
"None of these people are fit," he declared resentfully, "to associatewith you."
"You forget that plenty of people might not think I was fit to associatewith! A girl who is arrested for jewel robbery!"
"Your own fault, Miss Lovelace, if I may say so! If you hadn't been herewith Miss Million"--another ungrateful glance--"this suspicion wouldn'thave touched you."
"If I hadn't brought Miss Million here, it wouldn't have touched her!"
"That has nothing to do with it," he said quite fretfully. Men generallyare fretful, I notice, when women score a point in common sense.
It's so unexpected.
"The question still is--Are you going to make me the happiest man in theworld by marrying me?"
It's odd what a difference there is between one's first proposal ofmarriage--and one's second!
Yes! Even if they are from the same man, as mine were. The first time ismuch the better.
A girl is prouder, more touched by it. She is possessed by the feeling"Ah, I am really not worth all this! I don't deserve to have a reallysplendid young man thinking as much of me as Dick, or Tom, or Harry, orReginald, or whoever it is does."
I am only an ordinary sort of girl. I'm not one quarter as pretty, or asnice, or as sweet-tempered, or as affectionate, or as domesticated, oras good with my needle, or as likely to make a good wife as thousands ofother girls who would be only too glad to have him!
Yet it's me he chooses. It's me he loves. It's me he called "The OneGirl in the World for Him."
That may be a little obvious, but, oh, how wonderful! Even if a girldidn't want to say "Yes" the first minute she was asked, she simplycouldn't help feeling pleased and flattered and uplifted to the seventhheaven by the mere fact that he'd proposed.
Some girls never get a proposal at all. I'm really fearfully lucky tohave him look at me!
That's the first time, my dears.
As for the second time--well! I can only go by my own feelings withregard to Mr. Reginald Brace.
And these are: Well! He must like me dreadfully much to have proposed tome so soon again. He must adore me! I suppose I must be rather nice tolook at, since he thinks I am "beautiful."
It's very nice and kind of him to want to marry me at once; verygratifying. But why does he want to take me away from the society of awhole lot of amusing friends, because he thinks they are "not goodenough" for me?
Is he so much better? Is he? He may have a less Cockney voice, and aless flamboyant style of good looks than Miss Vi Vassity and hertheatrical friends.
But he can't have a kinder heart. Nobody could. And he hasn't anyquicker wits--that I've seen for myself.
It was magnificent of him to come to the court and to go bail for MissMillion and me directly he heard that we were suspected of robbery.
But, still----He must have known that we were innocent. Miss Million isa client of his, and he knows all about my people. I think a good dealof him for sticking to us. But I should have despised him if he hadn't.I like him. But, after all, when a girl says she'll marry a man, shemeans, or ought to mean, that he appeals to her more than any man she'sever met in her life.
It means she's sure she never will meet a man she could like more. Itmeans he's the type of looks she likes, the kind of voice she loves tolisten to, all the mental and physical qualities that call, softly, tosomething in her, saying:
"Here! Come to me. Come! It may be to settle down for life in a tinysuburban villa with one bed of calceolarias in the back garden and thekitchen range continually out of sorts. It may be to a life offollowing the drum from one outpost of the Empire to another. It may beto a country rectory, or to a ranch in Canada--"
I don't know what put the idea of a Canadian ranch into my head. Butlots of people do marry into them.
"--or to a hou
se in Park Lane, or to a bungalow in India. But whereverit is, wherever I am, that's home! Come!"
At least, ought one to feel like that, or oughtn't one? I don't know.Life and love are very complicated and confusing matters--especiallylove.
I told Mr. Brace so. This was just as we were rising from theluncheon-table. I said hurriedly: "I can't answer you. I really musthave more time to think it over."
His fair Puritan's face fell at this, and he looked at me reproachfully.
"More time?" he said discontentedly. "More time still?"
"Yes. I--I'm sure it's most important," I said earnestly. "Everybodyought to have lots and lots of time to think it over before they dreamof getting engaged. I'm sure that's the right thing."
And then our party broke up, for Miss Vi Vassity was going on to atheatrical garden fete to sell boxes of nougat with a signed photographof herself on the lid, and Mr. Hiram P. Jessop wanted to take his cousinout into the park for a long talk about his aerial bomb-dropper, hesaid, and Mr. Brace had to get back to the bank.
Miss Million said I could go out for a breath of air if I wanted, but Ihad to return to Miss Million's rooms upstairs and to set things alittle bit in order there, as well as packing up for our next flight tothe "Refuge."
Perhaps the Honourable Jim may call and tell me how he got on with myAunt Anastasia?
No! There has been no sign of him all the afternoon. It has gone quietlyand slowly. My talkative friend, the telephone girl, threw me a smileand a glance only a little sharper than usual as I crossed the hall. Thehurrying page-boys in brown, the porters look just the same as usual;the coming and going of the American visitors is the same.
Life here in the big hotel seems resumed for me exactly where it wasbroken off the day that Miss Million's disappearance coincided with thedisappearance of the celebrated Rattenheimer ruby. Ugh!... Except for myineffaceable memories of last night and this morning in the police-courtthere's nothing to remind me that my mistress and I are still in thathorrible and extraordinary situation, "out on bail."