"I suppose," she continued, "if a European man sees any woman alone
in a hotel with two men whom he can't size up right away as her
blood relations, he's apt to think things. Well, for all you know,
Mr. Tarbuck might be my uncle and Mr. Bingham-Booker my
half-brother."
"But they aren't."
"No. As far as blood goes, they aren't any more to me than Adam. You
have me there."
There was a long pause which Thesiger, for the life of him, could
not fill.
"Well," she reverted, "Mr. Whoever-you-are, I don't know that I owe
you an explanation----"
"You don't owe me anything."
"All the same I'm going to give you one, so that next time
you'll think twice before you make any more of your venerable
European mistakes. It isn't every woman who'd know how to turn
them to your advantage. Perhaps you've seen what's wrong with Mr.
Bingham-Booker?"
He intimated that it was not practicable not to see. "If I may say
so, that makes it all the more unfitting----"
"That's all you know about it, Mr.----"
"Thesiger," he supplied.
"Mr. Thesiger. That boy had to be taken care of. He was killing
himself with drink before we came away. He'd had a shock to his
nerves, that's what brought it on. He was ordered to Europe as his
one chance. Somebody had to go with him, somebody he'd mind, and
there wasn't anybody he _did_ mind but me. I've known him since he
was a little thing in knickerbockers, that high. So we fixed it that
I was to go out and look after Binky, and Binky's mother--he's her
only son--was coming out too, to look after me. We cared for
appearances as much as you do. Well, the day before we sailed her
married daughter was taken sick, in the inconsiderate way that
married daughters have, and she couldn't go. And, do you know, there
wasn't a woman that could take her place. They were afraid, every
one of them, because they knew." She lowered her voice to utter it.
"It makes him mad."
"My dear lady, it was a job for a trained nurse."
"Trained nurse? They couldn't afford one. And we didn't want a
uniform hanging around and rubbing it into the poor boy and
everybody else that he was an incurable dipsomaniac."
"But you--_you_?"
"It was my job. You don't suppose I was going back on them?"
She faced him with it, and as he looked at her he took the measure
of her magnificence, her brilliant bravery.
"Going back on _him_? Poor Binky, he was so good and dear--except
for that. You never saw anything so cute. Up to all sorts of
monkey-shines and beautiful surprises. And then"--she smiled with a
tender irony--"he gave us _this_ surprise." From her face you could
not have gathered how far from beautiful his last had been. "I was
going to see that boy through if I had to go with him alone. I said
to myself there are always people around who'll think things,
whatever you do, but it doesn't matter what people who don't matter
think. And then--Mr. Tarbuck wouldn't let me go alone. He said I'd
have to have a man with me. A strong man. He'd known me--never mind
how long--so it was all right. I don't know what I'd have done
without Mr. Tarbuck."
She paused on him.
"That man, whom you don't think fit for me to have around,
is--well--he's the finest man I've ever known or want to know. He
does the dearest things."
She paused again, remembering them. And Thesiger, though her
admiration of Tarbuck was obscurely hateful to him, owned that, fine
as she was, she was at her finest as she praised him.
"Why," she went on, "just because Binky couldn't afford a good room
he gave him his. He said the view of the sea would set him up better
than anything, and the garage was all the view _he_ wanted, because
he's just crazy on motors. And he's been like that all through.
Never thought of himself once."
"Oh, didn't he?" said Thesiger.
"Not once. Do you know, Mr. Tarbuck is a very big man. He runs one
of the biggest businesses in the States; and at twenty-four hours'
notice he left his big business to take care of itself, and came
right away on this trip to take care of me."
"Is he taking care of you now?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well--if he can leave you--here----?"
"Why, he's here somewhere, looking for Mr. Bingham-Booker. He's
routing about in those queer saloons and places."
"And you?"
"I'm keeping my eye on the Casino. It's my fault he got away. You
can't always tell when it's best to give him his head and when it
isn't. I ought to have let him have that whiskey and soda. Do you
see either of them?"