A flip of her slender hand dismissed this explanation, as she resumed
her task.
"Ah, go on!" And yet she veered back again, with a dash of tears in her
blue eyes. "Say, kid, I know all about it. You needn't try to put
anything over on me. I know all about it, and I'm sorry for you.
That's what I want to say. Do you remember how I used to tell you I was
your friend, and that Harry Drinkwater was your friend, too? Well, we
are--even now. There's something about you we both--we both kind o' took
to. I don't know what it is, but it's there. It was there when I
thought you might be a swell crook; and if I didn't mind that I don't
mind--this. The only thing I'm thinking is that you're up against it
awful thick; and so I told Dick Stroud that whoever shook you the sad
hand of farewell I'd be on the spot as the ministering angel."
There were so many points here that I could only seize the one lying, as
it were, on top.
"So you--you know Dick Stroud?"
She had gone on with her work again.
"_Know_ him? Well, I should say!"
"Have you known him long?"
"Known him ever since ... Say, I'll tell you when it was. It was after
we all came back on that ship together, and I was still doing the stenog
act for Boydie Averill, before I got Harry back on the job again. Well,
one day _that_ guy floated in, towed by little Lulu. He sure is her
style for fair, or he used to be before he went to France."
"Did--did Mrs. Averill introduce him to you?"
"He didn't wait for that. He introduced himself with a look. I didn't
need a second one before I'd read him like a headline. When I started
to go home that evening he was waiting at the corner to take me in a
taxi."
"Did you let him?"
"Sure I let him. It was a ride. When he asked me to dinner at the
Blitz I let him do that, too. You saw us. Don't you remember that nut?
that's what you called him afterward."
It came to me, that sleek mass of silver, distinguished and sinister at
once.
"So that was he!"
"That was Dick, sure thing!"
"You call him Dick?"
"What else would I call him when he wants me to? But that's giving him
away."
"Giving whom away?"
Vio had come out of her room without our having heard her. In a
tea-gown of black and gold she stood before us in an almost terrifying
dignity.
That is, it was almost terrifying to me, though Lydia was equal to the
situation.
"Oh, madam, I didn't know you heard. Mr. Harrowby was just kidding me
about Colonel Stroud."
"Indeed!" Moving forward with the air of an astonished queen, Vio
seated herself in the armchair. "But why should Mr. Harrowby be--what
was the word?--kidding you about anything?"
"Oh, we're old friends. Ain't we?" She turned to me for corroboration.
"Very good old friends," I said, with some warmth.
"Really! And you never told me."
"Madam never asked me. She never asked me if I knew Colonel Stroud,
either. How could I tell that she wanted to know?"
"Oh, but I don't want to know. I'm only interested--" she looked toward
me--"that you and--and this young lady should be so--so intimate."
"I hope madam doesn't mind."
"Let me see," Vio began to calculate. "It's about four or five weeks
since Mrs. Mountney sent you to me."
"And Mrs. Averill had sent me to her. You see, madam, I get a
commission on every pair, and so--"
"And so it was a good opportunity to--"
"To improve myself. Yes, madam."
Vio's brows came together in a frown. "To ... what? I don't understand
you."
"You see, madam, it's this way. I've only taken this corset job to--to
get an insight. I'm not really a saleswoman at all. I'm an
adventuress."
It was the only moment at which I ever saw Vio nonplussed.
"Oh, you are!" was all she could find to say.
"Well, not exactly yet; but I'm going to be. Only, if you're an
adventuress you've got to be a swell adventuress. There's only one
kind, and it's that. But you see, madam, I've never had enough to do
with ladies to be the real thing; and so when Clotilde put me on to this
corset stunt, I thought it 'd give me a chance to study them."
"To study--ladies?"
"Yes, madam. An adventuress has got to be that much of a lady that she
can put it over on a duchess or she might just as well stay out of the
business. Any boob in the movie line would tell you that."
"You interest me," Vio said, almost beneath her breath.
"I generally interest people, madam, when I get a-going. Colonel Stroud
says that if I was to go in for--"
"That's not what I want to hear. Tell me if--if your studies have
taught you what you wanted to know."
Having completed her package, Lydia stood in the attitude of a neat
French maid in a play.
"It's the model, madam. That's where the trouble is. An adventuress
has got to be ... well, just so. Did madam ever see Agnes Dunham as the
Russian Countess in 'The Scarlet Sin'? Well, she's it, only she's too
old. She must be thirty-five if she's a day. I don't know how many
times I didn't go see her; but I couldn't be that old, and then she
talked with a French accent, so that settled it. Colonel Stroud said
that if I was ever going to do the thing there was only one woman in the
world--"
"He took a professional interest in you, then?"
"Oh, my, yes; professional and every other way. Still does. Awful kind
he can be when he likes; but when he doesn't like! My!"
I was sorry for Vio. With bloodless lips and strained eyes she sat
grasping the arms of her chair in the effort to keep her self-mastery.
Had I loved her less I could have been glad of this minute, because it
was giving me what might be called my revenge. But I loved her too
much. It was clear to me, too, that I loved her more than I ever did.
My return had been a shock to her, and she had made a strenuous effort
to be game. She _was_ game. She had not fallen short of the most
sporting standard, except in matters over which she had no control.
"Stroud is always like that," I endeavored to smile, "giving every one a
helping hand. He mayn't be the wisest old dog in the world, but no one
can say that he isn't kind and faithful."
As it happened I had better have kept quiet. Vio sat upright, all the
force of her anger turned upon me.
"Has this girl been anything to you?"
"Yes, madam; a mother."
In her endeavor to control herself Vio uttered a hard pant, eying the
girl up and down.
"Oh? Indeed? You're young to be ... a mother!"
"Only a little younger than you, madam; and not half so beautiful.
Madam knows that any woman worth her salt is mother to any man down on
his luck. I don't care who he is, or who she is."
"Thank you for the information. I hope Mr. Harrowby has appreciated
your maternal care."
"Well, he did and he didn't, madam. Just when I thought he was going to
buck up he--he cleared out, and I thought he must be dead. Now, I find
that--"
"That he's alive. If you had come to me I could have told you
that--that clearing out was his specialty. You might say he had a
genius for it, if you weren't compelled to call it by another name."