"If only the earth would open and swallow me up!" sighed Lancaster
to himself, miserably. It is not pleasant to be made fun of, and the
most of people are too thin-skinned to relish a joke directed against
themselves. Lancaster did not. His ridiculous mistake flashed over him
instantly at the deprecatory words of the girl, and he scarcely knew
whom to be most angry with--himself or Leonora West.
He stole a furtive glance at her, wishing in his heart that he could
subdue the crimson flush that glowed on his face. He was glad that she
was not looking at him. She had sunk into a chair and buried her face
in her hands. Evidently she was not enjoying her saucy triumph much.
Those last impatient words of his had cleverly turned the tables.
He glanced at the drooping figure in the arm-chair, and it flashed over
him that De Vere would never be done laughing if he knew that he, Lord
Lancaster, a cavalry officer, and a "swell party" altogether, had been
made a target for the amusement of this lowly born girl. How dared she
do it? and could he keep De Vere from finding out? he asked himself in
the same breath.
And just then Leonora West lifted her wet eyes to his face, and said,
with a sob in her throat:
"I am glad now that I didn't tell you the truth at first. If I had,
I mightn't have found out, perhaps, that you thought me a bore and a
nuisance, and that you didn't want me to go to Europe with you."
Captain Lancaster winced. All she had said was quite true, yet he had
not cared to have her know it. It is but seldom one cares to have
people know one's real opinion of them.
"And--and"--she went on, resentfully, "you may be quite, quite sure,
after this, that I will not go with you. You will have no trouble with
me. My aunt might have come after me herself, I think. I was afraid,
when I got her letter saying that you would come for me, that something
would go wrong. Now I know it. To think that you should call me a baby!"
While she poured forth her grievances dolorously, Lancaster had been
collecting his wool-gathering wits. What upon earth was he to do if
she really refused to go with him? He pictured to himself old Lady
Lancaster's fury. It was quite likely that, after such a contretemps,
she would cut him off with a shilling.
"It will never do for her to stay in this mood. She shall go to
England, _nolens volens_," he resolved.
"Richard" began to be "himself again." The ludicrous side of the case
dawned upon him.
"I have made a tremendous _faux pas_, certainly, and now I must get out
of it the best way I can," he thought, grimly.
Leonora's sharp little tongue had grown still now, and her face was
again hidden in her hands. He went up to her and touched her black
sleeve lightly.
"Oh, come now," he said; "if you go on like this I shall think I made
a very apposite mistake. Who but a baby would make such a declaration
as yours in the face of the circumstances? Of course you are going to
Europe with me!"
"I am not," she cried, with a mutinous pout of the rich red lips.
"Yes, you are," he replied, coolly. "You have no business to get angry
with me because I made a slight mistake about your age. And after all,
I remember now that it was really De Vere's mistake, and not mine."
"Who is De Vere?" inquired Leonora, curiously, as she glanced up at
him through her wet lashes, and showing the rims of her eyes very pink
indeed from the resentful tears she had shed.
"De Vere is my friend and traveling-companion," he replied.
"And does he, too, consider me a bore and a nuisance?"
"Well," confidingly, "to tell you the truth, we both did--that is,
you know, while we were laboring under the very natural mistake that
you were a very small baby instead of--a grown-up one. But all that is
altered now, of course, since I have met you, Miss West. We shall be
only too happy to have you for our _compagnon du voyage_."
He was speaking to her quite as if she were his equal, and not the
lowly born niece of the housekeeper at his ancestral home. It was
impossible to keep that fact in his head. She was so fair, so refined,
so well-bred, in spite of the little flashes of spirit indicative of a
spoiled child.
She did not answer, and he continued, pleasantly:
"I am very sorry for the mistake on my part that caused you so much
annoyance. I desire to offer you every possible apology for it."
She looked up at him quickly. "Oh, I wasn't mad because you thought
Leonora West was a baby," she said.
"Then why--because I thought you were a nurse?"
"Not that either. I was only amused at those mistakes of yours."
She paused a moment, then added, with a rising flush:
"It was for those other words you said."
"I do not blame you at all. I was a regular brute," said Lancaster,
penitently. "Do say that you forgive me, I never should have said it if
only I had known."
"Known what?" she inquired.
"That you were the baby I had to carry to England. I should have been
only too happy to be of service to you. De Vere will be distracted with
envy at my privilege. There, I have said several pretty things to you.
Will you not forgive me now?"
"Yes, I will forgive you, but you do not deserve it," answered Leonora.
"It was not kind to talk about me so, even if I had been an unconscious
baby."
"It was not," he admitted. "But think a moment, Miss West. I am a
bachelor, and I know nothing at all of babies. I have forgotten all the
experiences of my own babyhood. I was wretched at the idea of having
to convey one of those troublesome little problems across the ocean. I
would as soon have been presented with a white elephant. I should have
known quite as much of one as the other. Can you find it in your heart
to chide me for my reluctance?"
Leonora reflected, with her pretty brows drawn together.
"Well, perhaps you are right," she acknowledged, after a moment. "They
are troublesome--babies, I mean--I think you called them problems. You
were right there, too, for one does not know what to make of them, nor
what they will do next, nor what they will become in the future."
"Then you can not blame me, can not be angry with me. And you will be
ready to go with me to-morrow?"
"No, I think not. I am afraid, after all you have said, Captain
Lancaster, that you really are vexed in your mind at the thought of
taking me. I do not believe I ought to take advantage of your pretended
readiness," she replied, sensitively, and with that perfect frankness
that seemed to be one of her characteristics.
"And you refuse to go with me?" He gazed at her despairingly.
"I would rather not," decidedly.
He looked at the pretty face in some alarm. It had a very resolute
air. Would she really carry out her threat of staying behind? He did
not know much about American girls, but he had heard that they managed
their own affairs rather more than their English sisters. This one
looked exceedingly like the heroine of that familiar ballad:
"When she will, she will, depend on't,
And when she won't, she won't,
And there's an end on't."
She glanced up and saw him pulling at the ends of his mustache with an
injured air, and a dark frown on his brow.
"Why do you look so mad? I should think you would be glad I'm not
going."
"I am vexed. I wasn't aware that I looked mad. In England we put mad
people into insane asylums," he replied, rather stiffly.
"Thank you. I understand. Old England is giving Young America a
rhetorical hint. Why do you look so vexed, then, Captain Lancaster?"
"Because there will be no end of a row in Lancaster Park when I go
there, because you have not come with me."
"Will there, really?"
"Yes; and my aunt, Lady Lancaster, who has promised to give me all her
money when she dies, will cut me off with a shilling because I have
disobeyed her orders and disappointed Mrs. West."
The blue-gray eyes opened to their widest extent.
"No!" she said.
"Yes, indeed," he replied.
"Then she must be a very hard woman," said Miss West, in a decided tone.
"She is," he replied, laconically.
"You are certain that she would not give you the money?" anxiously.
"Quite certain," he answered.
"And--have you none of your own?"
"Only my pay in the army," he admitted, laughing within himself at her
naïve curiosity.
"Is that much?" she went on, gravely.
"Enough to keep me in boots and hats," he answered, with an owl-like
gravity.
"And this Lady Lancaster--your aunt--does she give you the rest?"
persevered Leonora.
He did not want to be rude, but he burst out laughing. She looked up
into the bright blue eyes and reddened warmly.
"I dare say you think me curious and ill-bred," she said.
"Oh, no, no, not at all. I am intensely flattered by the interest you
take in my affairs."
"It is only because I do not want to be the means of your losing that
money, if you want it. Do you?"
"Indeed I do. Anybody would be glad to have twenty thousand a year," he
replied.
"So much as that? Then, of course, I must not be the cause of your
losing it," said Leonora, gravely.
"Then you will go with me?" he cried, with quite a load lifted from his
mind by her unexpected concession.
"Ye-es. I suppose I shall have to go," she answered.
"A thousand thanks. I thought you would relent," he said. "And will you
be ready to sail with me to-morrow?"
"Oh, yes, quite ready. My trunks have been packed several weeks, and I
have been only waiting for you to come," she answered, promptly.
And then she slipped her small hand into the folds of her dress and
drew out a netted silk purse, through whose meshes he caught the
glitter of gold pieces. She counted out a number of shining coins into
his hand with quite a business-like air.
"That is the price of my ticket. Will you please buy it for me? I will
have my luggage sent down all right," she said.
He took the money mechanically and rose, thinking this a dismissal.
Then something that had been on his mind all the time rose to his lips.
"I want to ask a great favor of you, Miss West."
She looked at him with a slight air of wonder, and answered: "Yes."
"You will meet with my friend, Lieutenant De Vere, on board the
steamer. He is a very nice youth indeed. He will be good friends with
you directly."
"In-deed?" said Leonora, in a slow, inquiring voice that implied a
distinct doubt on the subject.
"Yes, indeed. You need not look so incredulous. You will be sure to
like him. The ladies all adore him."
She looked up at him with the dimples coming into roguish play around
her mouth.
"And you wish to warn me not to fall a victim to his manifold
perfections?" she said.
"Oh, dear, no, not at all. I never thought of such a thing. You see,
Miss West, my friend intensely enjoys a joke."
"Yes?" she gazed at him with an air of thorough mystification.
"He intensely enjoys a joke," repeated Lancaster. "I want you to
promise me now, upon your honor, that you will not tell him how
unmercifully you quizzed me awhile ago. He would never have done
chaffing me if he knew, and he would tell the whole regiment once we
landed in England."
"Would they tease you much?" inquired Leonora, highly interested.
"Unbearably," he replied.
"They shall not know, then," she answered, promptly. "I will not tell
your friend about it."
"Nor any one?" he entreated.
"Certainly not," she answered, soothingly, and involuntarily he caught
her hand and pressed it a moment in his own, not displeased to see that
she blushed as she drew it hastily away.
He went away, and when he looked at his watch outside the door he was
honestly surprised.
"Two hours! I really do not know how the time went," he said to himself.
When he went back to his hotel he found De Vere in a state of surprise,
too.
"You have been gone almost three hours," he said. "Did you find the
baby?"
"Yes, I found it," he replied, carelessly.
"Was it well? Shall we have the pleasure of its company to-morrow?"
pursued the lieutenant.
"Yes, it was well, but it is a spoiled child. I am afraid we shall find
it a source of trouble to us," replied Captain Lancaster, smiling to
himself at the surprise and delight in store for De Vere to-morrow,
when he should find that it was a beautiful young girl instead of a
cross baby who was to be their _compagnon du voyage_ to England.