I am sure, gentle reader--you can see what facility I am gaining; I
would not have dared the "gentle reader" in Chapter I--I am sure you
will think me stupid not to have understood the situation by that time.
But I did not. When I came to myself the footman was standing by, very
stiffly, with a glass of wine on a tray, and it was easy to see that he
knew I had lost my heel and that one of my lace sleeves was gone. When I
unclenched my hand and found the necklace still there, and then dropped
it on the tray while I drank the wine, his jaw fell. But where he had
said, "Will you have some wine, Miss?" before, now he said, "Shall I
call 'Awkins, my lady?"
"Don't call any one," I said wearily. "Or--I wish you would find
the--the person who just came in with Sir George." And as he turned to
go, looking very puzzled, "Where am I?" I asked.
This really should have been said when I first roused.
"At Wimberley Towers, my lady," the man answered, but he looked at me
again curiously.
There was loud talking going on down the hall, and, as I sat, I could
make out scraps of it. A man's voice, vaguely familiar, in an even
monotone, followed by a shrill, excited one, also masculine.
"Berthold said there was a woman in the car, and that was what threw us
off, sir. He's always seeing women."
A cold, high English voice came next and then another, but without the
incisiveness of the earlier night--Sir George's voice, heavy and
lifeless, yet with an undercurrent of scorn.
"Surely you do not think _that_ necessary," he said.
The door was closed again, but a word reached me now and then,
occasional raisins in the loaf of my darkness. (This is a better
metaphor than I expected it to be, because I was loafing and the hall
was dark!) There was talk about Three-Mile Lane, and somebody being
accosted at a station, and a jingle of something that sounded like
money, followed by the heavy tramping of men along a distant corridor
and the closing of a door. Then a machine started somewhere outside with
half a dozen shot-like reports followed by the soft hum of the engine. I
had a queer feeling of being deserted in a strange place, and it came
over me suddenly that I had heard there was a Lady Lethbridge at
Wimberley, only they mostly called her Snooksie--English people use the
queerest diminutives--and what if she came and asked me what I was
doing and how I got there? Or perhaps Sir George would wire to town and
bring down a lot of people to take me off to the Tower. The more I
thought of it, the surer I felt that this was what was coming. I hoped
they would let me change my gown, anyhow--white satin and what was left
of bits of lace sleeves would look so queer being carried off to prison.
And to think how I had dreamed of that gown, and how, because it was my
first really dignified evening gown--all the rest being tulle and
dancing frocks--how I had thought I would wear it just once and perhaps
meet somebody who liked it terribly and me in it. And then I would lay
it away, and some time later--much later--I would bring it out, a little
yellow, and say, "Do you remember it?" And he would say, "Remember it?
As long as I live." And I would say, "I thought of having baby's
christening cloak made of it on account of the sentiment." And then he
would hold out his arms and say, "Please don't!"
I had not heard any one come along the hall, because I was sniffling;
so, when something touched me on the shoulder I looked up, and there
_he_ was, just as I had been--well, there he was. And he sat down on the
bench beside me, in a puddle, and helped me find my handkerchief.
"I didn't mean to leave you," he said gently, "but there was something
that had to be attended to and couldn't wait. Can you walk as far as the
library? There is a fire there and I will get you something dry. We
can't go upstairs, because I suppose you don't care to let Blanche in on
this?"
"Blanche?" I said, trying to balance on my one heel.
"My brother's wife," he explained. "Luckily, she's a little deaf, and
Thad has gone up to see she doesn't snoop. What in the world is the
matter? Just now you were quite tall and stately, and now you are hardly
to my shoulder!"
So I told him about my heel, and he said he liked little women, and that
no person who was just five feet two inches and had really curly hair
was ever a Militant at heart, and that he had always thought young
American girls were well heeled. It was an astonishing joke for an
Englishman, until it developed that he had been living in California for
a dozen years and was only home on a visit. And that his name was John,
although he was mostly called Jack. When we were nicely settled by the
library fire and the man had brought me a cup of tea that would have
floated an egg, I asked him quite casually if there was a Mrs. John. He
drew his chair up just opposite me and leaned forward with his chin in
his hands.
"Not yet," he said.
Something made me draw my breath in sharply--I think it was his
tone--and I quite scalded my throat with the tea. The fire was very hot,
and little clouds of steam began to rise from my white satin.
"I have spoiled my gown," I said ruefully, "and I had such plans for
it."
"What kind of plans?" he asked, moving his chair forward a little. "Do
tell me. I'm always making plans myself. And pretty soon, when you are
dry and the motor is ready, I shall have to take you back to Ivry, and
when we meet again--if we ever do, for Daphne is going to kill me on
sight--you will be very, very formal and have both your heels."
"I hope you will forgive me," I said stiffly, "for calling you a--a
thief and locking you up and--everything. I don't understand anything
yet; it must be because I am so sleepy."
"Poor little girl!" he said. "What you have gone through! And as for
forgiving you, you saved my life to-night. Why, if you thought me a
thief, did you unload that revolver? If you tell me that I will try to
clear up the rest of the mysteries."
"I was afraid he might become excited and shoot you," I returned simply.
And he bent over and took my hand.
"I hoped that was it," he said, just as simply. He did not relinquish my
hand.
(When I told Daphne the story I merely said of this: "I dried myself by
the library fire.")
But suddenly I saw something that fairly made my blood chill in my
veins. On the floor, at his very feet, the firelight dancing on their
polished metal, lay a pair of handcuffs.
"Oh!" I cried and jumped to my feet, pointing. "You haven't been telling
me the truth. They have given you a few minutes, and then they are
coming back to take you away. Oh, don't let them to do it. I couldn't
stand it!"
Yes, that is what I said. It was utterly shameless, of course, and no
properly-behaved young woman would ever have said it. But no
properly-behaved young woman would have kidnapped a Prime Minister,
anyhow, and sat in a strange house while her hostess was asleep,
drinking tea at four o'clock in the morning.
When I stood up _he_ stood up, too, and looked down at me. "It is worth
while having been a brute and a villain," he said soberly, "to hear
that. I am not under arrest or going to be. The fact is that two
entirely different and--if you will forgive me--nefarious schemes have
been under way at the same time, and the lines crossed. You and I got
tangled in them and nearly submerged. But that was not accident; it was
destiny." He took my other hand.
At that absorbing moment the footman announced cautiously that the motor
was at the door. It was horribly disappointing. From destiny to motor
wraps is such a descent.
"Do we have to go right away?" I said.