The Baron and Mr Bunker discussed their dinner with the relish of
approving connoisseurs. Mr Bunker commended the hock, and suggested a
second bottle; the Baron praised the _entrées_, and insisted on another
helping. The frequent laughter arising from their table excited general
remark throughout the room, and already the waiters were whispering to the
other guests that this was a German nobleman of royal blood engaged in a
diplomatic mission of importance, and his friend a ducal member of the
English Cabinet, at present, for reasons of state, incognito.
“Bonker!” exclaimed the Baron, “I am in zat frame of head I vant a
romance, an adventure” (lowering his voice a little), “mit a beautiful
lady, Bonker.”
“It must be a romance, Baron?”
“A novel, a story to tell to mine frients. In a strange city man expects
strange zings.”
“Well, I’ll do my best for you, but I confess the provision of romantic
adventures is a little outside the programme we’ve arranged.”
“Ha, ha! Ve shall see, ve shall see, Bonker!”
They arrived at the Corinthian Theatre about the middle of the first act,
for, as Mr Bunker explained, it is always well to produce a good first
impression, and few more effective means can be devised than working one’s
way to the middle of a line of stalls with the play already in progress.
Hardly were they seated when the Baron drove his elbow into his friend’s
ribs (draped for the night, it may be remarked, with one of the Baron’s
spare dress-coats) and exclaimed in an excited whisper, “Next to you,
Bonker! Ach, zehr hüpsch!”
Even before this hint Mr Bunker had observed that the lady on the other
side of him was possessed of exceptional attractions. For a little time he
studied her out of the corners of his eyes. He noticed that the stall on
the farther side of her was empty, that she once or twice looked round as
though she expected somebody, and that she seemed not altogether
unconscious of her new neighbours. He further observed that her face was
of a type that is more usually engaged in attack than defence.
Then he whispered, “Would you like to know her?”
“Ach, yah!” replied the Baron, eagerly. “Bot—can you?”
Mr Bunker smiled confidently. A few minutes later he happened to let his
programme fall into her lap.
“I beg your pardon,” he whispered, softly, and glanced into her eyes with
a smile ready.
His usual discernment had not failed him. She smiled, and instantly he
produced his.
A little later her opera-glasses happened to slip from her hand, and
though they only slipped slowly, it was no doubt owing to his ready
presence of mind that their fall was averted.
This time their fingers happened to touch, and they smiled without an
apology.
He leant towards her, looking, however, at the play. They shared a laugh
over a joke that she might have been excused for not understanding;
presently a criticism of some situation escaped him inadvertently, and she
smiled again; soon after she gave an exclamation and he answered
sympathetically, and at the end of the act the curtain came down on an
acquaintance already begun. As the lights were turned up, and here and
there men began to go out, she again looked at the entrances in some
apparent concern, either lest some one should not come in or lest some one
should.
“He is late,” said Mr Bunker, smiling.
She gave a very enticing look of surprise, and consented to smile back
before she coyly looked away again.
“An erring husband, I presume.”
She admitted that it was in fact a husband who had failed her.
“But,” she added, “I’m afraid—I mean I expect he’ll come in after the next
act. It’s so tiresome of him to disappoint me like this.”
Mr Bunker expressed the deepest sympathy with her unfortunate predicament.
“He has his ticket, of course?”
But it seemed that she had both the tickets with her, an arrangement which
he immediately denounced as likely to lead to difficulties when her
husband arrived. He further, in the most obliging manner, suggested that
he should take the ticket for the other seat to the booking office and
leave instructions for its being given to the gentleman on his arrival.
The lady gave him a curious little glance that seemed to imply a mixture
of doubt as to his motives with confidence in his abilities, and then with
many thanks agreed to his suggestion. Mr Bunker took the ticket and rose
at once.
“That I may be sure you are in good company while I am away,” said he,
“permit me to introduce my friend the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg.”
And the Baron promptly took his vacant seat.
On his return Mr Bunker found his friend wreathed in smiles and engaged in
the most animated conversation with the lady, and before the last act was
over, he gathered from such scraps of conversation as reached his ears
that Rudolph von Blitzenberg had little to learn in one department of a
nobleman’s duties.
“I wonder where my husband can be,” the lady whispered.
“Ach, heed him not, fair lady,” replied the Baron. “Am I not instead of a
hosband?”
“I’m afraid you’re a very naughty man, Baron.”
“Ven I am viz you,” the gallant Baron answered, “I forget myself all bot
your charms.”
These advances being made in the most dulcet tones of which the nobleman
was master, and accompanied by the most enamoured expression, it is not
surprising that the lady permitted herself to listen to them with perhaps
too ready an ear. What Mr Bunker’s arrangement with the booking clerk had
been was never quite clear, but certainly the erring husband failed to
make his appearance at all, and at the last fall of the curtain she was
easily persuaded to let the Baron escort her home.
“I know I ought not, but if a husband deserts one so faithlessly, what can
I do?” she said, with a very becoming little shrug of her shoulders and a
captivating lift of her eyebrows.
“Ah, vat indeed? He desairves not so fair a consort.”
“But won’t it be troubling you?”
“Trouble? Pleasure and captivation!”
“Excuse me, Baron,” said the voice of Mr Bunker at his elbow; “if you will
wait here at the door I shall send up a cab.”
“Goot!” cried the Baron, “a zouzand zanks!”
“I myself,” added Mr Bunker, with a profound bow to the lady, “shall say
good night now. The best of luck, Baron!”
In a few minutes a hansom drove up, and the Baron, springing in beside his
charge, told the man to drive to 602 Eaton Square.
“Not too qvickly!” he added, in a stage aside.
They reached Trafalgar Square, matters inside going harmoniously as a
marriage bell,—almost, in fact, too much suggesting that simile.
“Why are we going down Whitehall?” the lady exclaimed, suddenly.
“I know not,” replied the Baron, placidly.
“Ask him where he is going!” she said.
The Baron, as in duty bound, asked, and the reassuring reply, “All right,
sir,” came back through the hole in the roof.
“I seem to know that man’s voice,” the lady said. “He must have driven me
before.”
“To me all ze English speak ze same,” replied the Baron. “All bot you, my
fairest, viz your sound like a—vat you call?—fiddle, is it?”
Though his charmer had serious misgivings regarding their cabman’s
topographical knowledge, the Baron’s company proved so absorbing that it
was not till they were being rapidly driven over Vauxhall Bridge that she
at last took alarm. At first the Baron strove to soothe her by the most
approved Teutonic blandishments, but in time he too began to feel
concerned, and in a voice like thunder he repeatedly called upon the
driver to stop. No reply was vouchsafed, and the pace merely grew the more
reckless.
“Can’t you catch the reins?” cried the lady, who had got into a terrible
fright.
The Baron twice essayed the feat, but each time a heavy blow over the
knuckles from the butt-end of the whip forced him to desist. The lady
burst into tears. The Baron swore in five languages alternately, and still
the cab pursued its headlong career through deserted midnight streets,
past infrequent policemen and stray belated revellers, on into an unknown
wilderness of brick.
“Oh, don’t let him murder me!” sobbed the lady.
“Haf cheer, fairest; he shall not vile I am viz you! Gott in himmel, ze
rascal! Parbleu und blood! Goddam! Vait till I catch him, hell and
blitzen! Haf courage, dear!”
“Oh dear, oh dear!” wailed the lady. “I shall _never_ do it again!”
They must have covered miles, and still the speed never abated, when
suddenly, as they were rounding a sharp corner, the horse slipped on the
frost-bound road, and in the twinkling of an eye the Baron and the lady
were sitting on opposite sides of their fallen steed, and the cabman was
rubbing his head some yards in front.
“Teufel!” exclaimed the Baron, rising carefully to his feet. “Ach, mine
dearest vun, art thou hurt?”
The lady was silent for a moment, as though trying to decide, and then she
burst into hysterical laughter.
“Ach, zo,” said the Baron, much relieved, “zen vill I see ze cabman.”
That individual was still rubbing his head with a rueful air, and the
Baron was about to pour forth all his bottled-up indignation, when at the
sight of the driver’s face he started back in blank astonishment.
“Bonker!”
“It is I indeed, my dear Baron,” replied that gentleman, politely. “I must
ask a thousand pardons for causing you this trifling inconvenience. As to
your friend, I don’t know how I am to make my peace with her.”
“Bot—bot vat means zis?” gasped the Baron.
“I was merely endeavouring to provide the spice of romance you required,
besides giving you the opportunity of making the lady’s better
acquaintance. Can I do anything more for you, Baron? And you, my dear
lady, can I assist you in any way?”
Both, speaking at once and with some heat, gave a decidedly affirmative
answer.
“Where are we?” asked the lady, who hovered between fright and
indignation.
Mr Bunker shrugged his shoulders.
“It would be rash to hazard an opinion,” he replied.
“Well!” cried the lady, her indignation quite overcoming her fright. “Do
you mean to say you’ve brought us here against our wills and probably got
me into _dreadful_ trouble, and you don’t even know where we are?”
Mr Bunker looked up at the heavens with a studious air.
“One _ought_ to be able to tell something of our whereabouts from one of
those stars,” he replied; “but, to tell the truth, I don’t quite know
which. In short, madame, it is not from want of goodwill, but merely
through ignorance, that I cannot direct you.”
The lady turned impatiently to the Baron.
“_You’ve_ helped to get me into this mess,” she said, tartly. “What do you
propose to do?”
“My fairest——”
“Don’t!” she interrupted, stamping her foot on the frosty road, and then
inconsequently burst into tears. The Baron and Mr Bunker looked at one
another.
“It is a fine night for a walk, and the cab, I’m afraid, is smashed beyond
hope of redemption. Give the lady your arm, Baron; we must eventually
arrive somewhere.”
There was really nothing else for it, so leaving the horse and cab to be
recovered by the first policeman who chanced to pass, they set out on
foot. At last, after half an hour’s ramble through the solitudes of South
London, a belated cab was hailed and all three got inside. Once on her way
home, the lady’s indignation again gave way to fright.
“What _am_ I to do? What _am_ I to do?” she wailed. “Oh, whatever will my
husband say?”
In his most confident and irresistible manner Mr Bunker told her he would
make matters all right for her at whatever cost to himself; and so
infectious was his assurance, that, when at last they reached Eaton
Square, she allowed him to come up to the door of number 602. The Baron
prudently remained in the cab, for, as he explained, “My English, he is
unsafe.”
After a prolonged knocking and ringing the door at length opened, and an
irascible-looking, middle-aged gentleman appeared, arrayed in a
dressing-gown.
“Louisa!” he cried. “What the dev—where on earth have you been? The police
are looking for you all over London. And may I venture to ask who this is
with you?”
Mr Bunker bowed slightly and raised his hat.
“My dear sir,” he said, “we found this lady in a lamentable state of
intoxication in the Tottenham Court Road, and as I understand you have a
kind of reversionary interest in her, we have brought her here. As for
you, sir, your appearance is so unprepossessing that I am unable to remain
any longer. Good night,” and raising his hat again he entered the cab and
drove off, assuring the Baron that matters were satisfactorily arranged.
“So you have had your adventure, Baron,” he added, with a smile.
For a minute or two the Baron was silent. Then he broke into a cheerful
guffaw, “Ha, ha, ha! You are a fonny devil, Bonker! Ach, bot it vas
pleasant vile it lasted!”