I had broken the news of the scarlet dress to him, nevertheless I saw it was a shock. To each one, the other was a new person, as we stood and talked together. I said not a word about my scene with Bertie, for there was trouble enough between the two already; but when Jack told me that, if I were asked to dance by anyone objectionable, I must say I was engaged to him, I knew which One loomed largest and ugliest in his mind.

A glance round the big, bright room showed me many strangers. All were servants, however, for the grand people had not yet come down to play their little game of condescension. A band from Clermont-Ferrand was making music, but the ball was to be opened by the marquise and her guests, who were to honour their servants by dancing the first dance with them. Each noble lady was to select a cook, butler, footman, chauffeur, or groom, according to her pleasure; and each noble lord was to lead out the female worm which least displeased his eye.

Hardly had I time to dive deep into the wave of domesticity, when the great moment arrived, and a spray of aristocracy sprinkled the top of that heavy wave, with the dazzling sparkle of its jewels and its beauty. Really it was a pretty sight! I had to admire it; and in watching the play of light and colour I forgot my private worries until I saw Bertie bowing before me.

The marquise had just honoured her own butler. The marquis was offering his arm to the housekeeper; the Duc de Divonne had led out Miss Nelson's bilious maid, appalling in apple-green: Miss Nelson was returning the compliment by giving her hand to his valet: why should not this young gentleman dance with his step-mother-in-law's maid?

There seemed no reason why not, except the maid's disinclination; and sudden side-slip of the brain caused by the glassy impudence in Mr. Stokes's eye so disturbed my equilibrium that I forgot Jack's offer. He did not forget, however—it would hardly have been Jack, if he had—but stepped forward to claim me as I began to stammer some excuse.

"Oh, come, that isn't playin' the game," said Bertie. "We're all dancin' with servants this turn. Go ask a lady, Dane."

"I have asked a lady, and she has promised to dance with me," said Jack. "Miss d'Angely—"

"Oh, that's the lady's name, is it? I'm glad to know," mumbled Bertie, as Jack whisked me away from under his nose.

"By Jove, I oughtn't to have let that out, ought I?" said Jack, remorseful. "The less he knows about you, the better; and as Lady Turnour has no idea of pronunciation, if it hadn't been for my stupidity—"

"Don't call it that," I stopped him, as we began to dance. "It doesn't matter a bit—unless it should occur to the Duchesse de Melun to ask him questions about me. And I'd rather not think about that possibility, or anything else disagreeable, to spoil this heavenly waltz."

"You can dance a little, can't you?" said Jack, in a tone and with a look that made the words better than any compliment any other man had ever paid me on my dancing, though I'd been likened to feathers, and vine-tendrils, and various poetically airy things.

"You aren't so bad yourself, brother," I retorted, in the same tone. "Our steps suit, don't they?"

He muttered something, which sounded like "Just a little better than anything else on earth, that's all"; but of course it couldn't really have been what my ears tried to make my vanity believe.

When we stopped—which we didn't do while there was music to go on with—I was conscious that people were looking at us, and nobody with more interest than the Duchesse de Melun. I glanced hastily away before my eye had quite caught hers; but no female thing needs to give a whole eye to what is going on around her. I knew, although my back was soon turned in her direction, that the Duchesse de Melun was talking to Lady Turnour, and I guessed the subject of the conversation. Thank goodness, my mistress's mind had never compassed more than a misleading "Elise," and thank goodness, also, many of the great folk were preparing to leave us humble ones to ourselves, now that their condescension had been proved in the first dance. Would the duchess go? Yes—oh joy!—she gets up from her seat. She moves toward the door. Lady Turnour has risen too, but sits down again, lured by the proximity of a princess. All will be well, perhaps! The duchess mayn't think of catechizing Bertie, now that my mistress has put her off the track. He, with several other young men, evidently means to stop and see the fun out. If only he would sit still, now, beside the marquise! But no. Miss Nelson and the Duc de Divonne are going out together. Bertie must needs jump up and dash across the room for a word with the girl. Discouraged by some laughing answer flung over her shoulder, he almost bumps against the duchess. Horror! She speaks to him quite eagerly. She puts a question. He replies. She bends her head near to him. They walk slowly out of the room, talking, talking. All is up with Lys d'Angely! The next thing that Meddlesome Matty of a duchess will do, is to wire Cousin Catherine Milvaine. Crash! thunder—lightning—hail!—Monsieur Charretier on my track again.

* * * * *

I resolved, as I saw myself lying shattered at my own feet, to pick up the bits and say nothing to Jack, lest he should blame his own inadvertent dropping of my name for all present and future mischief. Being a man, he can see things only with his eyes; and as he happened to be looking at me, he missed the pantomime at the other end of the room. I was looking at him too, but of course that didn't prevent me from seeing other things; and while I was chatting with him, and wondering how long it might be before the thunderbolt (Monsieur Charretier) should fall, I received another invitation to dance. This time it was from a delightful old boy who looked sixty and felt twenty-one.

He was ruddy-brown, with tight gray curls on his head, and deep dimples in his cheeks. If anyone had told me that he was not an English admiral I should have known it was a fib.

"I hope you aren't engaged for this next waltz?" said he. "I should like very much to have it with you." And he spoke as nicely as he would to a young girl of his own world, although he must have heard from someone that I was a lady's maid.

I glanced at Jack, but evidently he approved of admirals as partners for his sister. He kept himself in the background, smiling benevolently, and I skipped away with my brown old sailor, as the music for the dance began.

"Heard you spoke English," said he, encircling my Directoire waist with the arm of a sea-going Hercules, "otherwise I shouldn't have had the courage to come up and speak to you."

I laughed. "A Dreadnought afraid of a fishing-smack!"

"My word, if you were a fishin'-smack, my little friend, you wouldn't lack for fish to catch," chuckled the old gentleman, who was waltzing like an elderly angel—as all sailors do. Now, if Bertie had said what he said, I should have been offended, but coming from the admiral it cheered me up.

"You are an admiral, aren't you?" I was bold enough to ask.

"Who told you that?" he wanted to know.

"My eyes," said I.

"They're bright ones," he retorted. "But I suppose I do look an old sea-dog—what? A regular old salt-water dog. But by George, it's hot water I've got into to-night. D'ye see that stout lady we're just passin'?—the one in the red wig and yellow frock covered with paste or diamonds?"

(If she could have heard the description! It was Lady Turnour, in her gold tissue, her Bond Street jewellery shop, and, my charge, her beautifully undulated, copper-tinted transformation.)

"Yes, I see her," I said faintly, as we waltzed past; and I wondered why she was glaring.

"I suppose you didn't notice me doin' the first dance with her? Well, I asked her because they said we'd all got to invite servants to begin with, and as the best were snapped up before I got a chance, I walked over to her like a man. Give you my word, where all are dressed like duchesses, I took her for a cook."

I laughed so much that I shook my feet out of time with the music.

"Did you treat her like a cook, too?" I gurgled. "Ask her to give you her favourite recipe for soup?"

"Heaven forbid, no. I treated her like a countess. One would a cook, you know. It was afterward I got into the hot water. I popped her down in a seat when we'd scrambled through a turn or two of the dance, and that was all right; but instead of stoppin' where she was put, she must have stood up with some other poor chap when my back was turned, and been plamped down somewhere else. Anyhow, I danced the end of the waltz with the Marquise de Roquemartine, when she'd finished doin' the polite to the butler, and when we sat down to breathe at last, for the sake of somethin' to say I asked if the fat lady in yellow was her own cook, or a visitor's cook. Anyhow, I was certain of the cook: fancied myself on spottin' a cook anywhere. Well, the marquise giggled 'Take care!' and nearly had a fit. And if there wasn't my late partner close to my shoulder. 'That's Lady Turnour, one of my guests,' said the marquise. Little witch, she looked more pleased than shocked; but 'pon my honour, you could have knocked me down with a feather. I hope the good lady didn't hear, but my friends tell me I talk as if I were yellin' through a megaphone, so I'm afraid she got the news."

"What did you do?" I gasped.

"Do? I jumped up as if I'd been shot, and trotted over to ask you to dance. But I expect it will get about."

Now I knew why Lady Turnour had glared. Poor woman! I was really sorry for her—on this, her happy night!



CHAPTER XXIX

"It never rains, but it pours, after dry weather," says Pamela de Nesle. And so it was for the Turnour family. They had had their run of luck, and everything determinedly went wrong for them that night.

For her ladyship, there was the dreadful douche of the admiral's mistake, and the Marquise de Roquemartine's coming to hear of it. (Wicked little witch, I'm sure she couldn't resist telling the story to everyone!) For Bertie, the blow of an announcement, before the ball was over, that Miss Nelson was going to marry the Duc de Divonne (she went out of the room to get engaged to him). For Sir Samuel, a telegram from his London solicitors advising him to hurry home and straighten out some annoying business tangle.

After all, however, I doubt that the telegram ought to be classed among disasters, as it gave the family a good excuse to escape without delay from the chateau which they had so much wished to enter.

Lady Turnour had hysterics in her bedroom, having retired early on account of a "headache." She pretended that her rage was caused by a rent in her golden train, made by "that clumsy Admiral Gray who came over with the Frasers, and had the impudence to almost force me to dance with him—gouty old horror!" But I know it was the rent in her vanity, not her dress, which made her gurgle, and wail, and choke, until frightened Sir Samuel patted her on the back, and she stopped short, to scold him.

Bertie came in, ostensibly to learn his father's plans, but really, I surmised, to suggest some of his own; and Lady Turnour relieved her feelings by stirring up evil ones in him. "So sure you were going to get the girl! Why, you wrote your stepfather the other day, you were practically engaged," she sneered, delighted that she was not the only one who had suffered humiliations at the castle.

"If she hadn't seen you, I believe it would have been all right," growled Bertie, vicious as a chained dog who has lost his bone. And then Lady Turnour had hysterics all over again, and Sir Samuel told Bertie that he was an ungrateful young brute. The three raged together, and I could not go, because I had to hold sal-volatile under her ladyship's nose. Lady Turnour said that the marquise was no lidy, and for her part she was glad she wasn't going to have that cat of a sister in her family. She'd leave the beastly chattoe that night, if she could; but anyhow, she'd go the first thing in the morning as ever was, so there! People that let their visitors be insulted, and did nothing but laugh!—She'd show them, if they ever came to London, that she would, though she mightn't be a marquise herself, exactly. Not one of the lot should ever be invited to her house, not if they were all married to Bertie. And who was Bertie, anyhow?

Sir Samuel said 'darling' to her, and quite different words that began with "d" to his stepson; and Bertie, seeing the error of his ways, apologized humbly. His apologies were eventually accepted; and when he had intimated to her ladyship that she should be introduced to all his "swell friends" in England, it was settled that he should make one of the party in the car, his valet travelling by train. As this arrangement completed itself, Mr. Bertie suddenly remembered my presence, and flashed me a look of triumph.

I, listening silently, had been rejoicing in the development of the situation as far as I was concerned; for the sooner we got away from the chateau, the less likely was Monsieur Charretier to succeed in catching us up. But when I heard that we were to have Bertie with us, my heart sank, especially as his look told me that I counted for something in his plan. The chauffeur counted for something, too, I feared. In any case, the rest of the tour was spoiled, and if it hadn't been for the thought that when it was over, Jack and I might meet no more, I should have wished it cut short.

Good-byes were perfunctory in the morning, and nobody seemed heartbroken at parting from the Turnour family. The big luggage, packed early and in haste, was sent on to Paris; and when the chauffeur had disposed of Bertie's additions to the Aigle's load, hostilities began.

"Put down that seat for me," said Mr. Stokes to Mr. Dane, indicating one of the folding chairs in the glass cage, and carefully waiting to do so until I was within eye and earshot.

They glared at each other like two tigers, for an instant, and then Jack put the seat down—I knew why. A refusal on his part to do such a service for his master's stepson would mean that he must resign or be discharged—and leave me to deal unaided with a cad. I think Bertie knew, too, why he was unhesitatingly obeyed; and racked his brain for further tests. It was not long before he had a brilliant idea.

The car stopped at a level crossing, to let a train go by, and Bertie availed himself of the opportunity to get out.

"Sir Samuel's going' to let me try my hand at drivin'," said he. "I don't think much of your form, and I've been tellin' him so. My best pal is a director of the Aigle company, and I've driven his car a lot of times. Her ladyship will let Elise sit inside, and I'll watch your style a bit before I take the wheel."

Not a word said Jack. He didn't even look at me as he helped me down from the seat which had been mine for so many happy days. I crept miserably into the stuffy glass cage, where, in the folding chair, I sat as far forward as my own shape and the car's allowed; Sir Samuel's fat knees in my back, Lady Turnour's sharp voice in my ears. And for scenery, I had Bertie's aggressive shoulders and supercilious gesticulations.

The road to Nevers I scarcely saw. I think it was flat; but Bertie's driving made it play cup and ball with the car in a curious way, which a good chauffeur could hardly have managed if he tried. We passed Riom, Gannat, Aigueperse, I know; and at Moulins, in the valley of the Allier, we lunched in a hurry. To Nevers we came early, but it was there we were to stop for the night, and there we did stop, in a drizzle of rain which prevented sight-seeing for those who had the wish, and the freedom, to go about. As for me, I was ordered by Lady Turnour to mend Mr. Stokes's socks, he having made peace by offering to "give her a swagger dinner in town."

Bertie's cleverness was not confined to ingratiating himself with her ladyship. He contrived adroitly to damage the steering-gear by grazing a wall as he turned the Aigle into the hotel courtyard, and by this feat disposed of the chauffeur's evening, which was spent in hard work at the garage. Such dinner as Jack got, he ate there, in the shape of a furtive sandwich or two, otherwise we should not have been able to leave in the morning at the early hour suggested by Mr. Stokes.

Warned by the incidents of yesterday, Sir Samuel desired his chauffeur to take the wheel again from Nevers to Paris. But—no doubt with the view of keeping us apart, and devising new tortures for his enemy—Bertie elected to play Wolf to Jack's Spartan Boy, and sit beside him. This relegated me to the cage again, with back-massage from Sir Samuel's knees.

Before Fontainebleau, I found myself in a familiar land. As far as Montargis I had motored with the Milvaines more than once, conducted by Monsieur Charretier, in a great car which might have been mine if I had accepted it, not "with a pound of tea," but with two hundred pounds of millionaire. I knew the lovely valley of the Loing, and the forest which makes the world green and shadowy from Bourrau to Fontainebleau, a world where poetry and history clasp hands. I should have had plenty to say about it all to Jack, if we had been together, but I was still inside the car, and by this time Bertie had induced his stepfather to consent to his driving again. He pleaded that there had been something wrong with the ignition yesterday. That was why the car had not gone well. It had not been his fault at all. Sir Samuel, always inclined to say "Yes" rather than "No" to one he loved, said "Yes" to Bertie, and had cause to regret it. Close to Fontainebleau Mr. Stokes saw another car, with a pretty girl in it. The car was going faster than ours, as it was higher powered and had a lighter load. Naturally, being himself, it occurred to Bertie that it would be well to show the pretty girl what he could do. We were going up hill, as it happened, and he changed speed with a quick, fierce crash. The Aigle made a sound as if she were gritting her teeth, shivered, and began to run back. Bertie, losing his head, tried a lower speed, which had no effect, and Lady Turnour had begun to shriek when Jack leaned across and put on the hand-brake. The car stopped, just in time not to run down a pony cart full of children.

No wonder the poor dear Aigle had gritted her teeth! Several of them turned out to be broken in the gear box.

"We're done!" said Jack. "She'll have to be towed to the nearest garage. Pity we couldn't have got on to Paris."

"Can't you put in some false teeth?" suggested Lady Turnour, at which Bertie laughed, and was thereupon reproached for the accident, as he well deserved to be.

Then the question was what should be the next step for the passengers. I expected to be trotted reluctantly on to Paris by train, leaving Jack behind to find a "tow," and see the dilemma through to an end of some sort, but to my joyful surprise Bertie used all his wiles upon the family to induce them to stop at Fontainebleau. It was a beautiful place, he argued, and they would like it so much, that they would come to think the breakdown a blessing in disguise. In any case, he had intended advising them to pause for tea, and to stay the night if they cared for the place. They would find a good hotel, practically in the forest; and he had an acquaintance who owned a chateau near by, a very important sort of chap, who knew everybody worth knowing in French society. If the Governor and "Lady T." liked, he would go dig his friend up, and bring him round to call. Maybe they'd all be invited to the chateau for dinner. The man had a lot of motors and would send one for them, very likely—perhaps would even lend a car to take them on to Paris to-morrow morning.

I listened to these arguments and suggestions with a creepy feeling in the roots of my hair, for I, too, have an "acquaintance" who owns a chateau near Fontainebleau: a certain Monsieur Charretier. He, also, has a "lot of motors" and would, I knew, if he were "in residence" be delighted to lend a car and extend an invitation to dinner, if informed that Lys d'Angely was of the party. Could it be, I thought, that Mr. Stokes was acquainted with Monsieur Charretier, or that, not being acquainted, he had heard something from the Duchesse de Melun, and was making a little experiment with me?

Perhaps I imagined it, but it seemed that he glanced my way triumphantly, when Lady Turnour agreed to stay in the hope of meeting the nameless, but important, friend; and I felt that, whatever happened, I must have a word of advice from Jack.

The discussion had taken place in the road, or rather, at the side of the road, where the combined exertions of Jack and Bertie had pushed the wounded Aigle. The chauffeur, having examined the car and pronounced her helpless, walked back to interview a carter we had passed not long before, with the view of procuring a tow. Now, just as the discussion was decided in favour of stopping over night at Fontainebleau, he appeared again, in the cart.

We were so near the hotel in the woods that we could be towed there in half an hour, and, ignominious as the situation was, Lady Turnour preferred it to the greater evil of walking. I remained in the car with her, the chauffeur steered, the carter towed, and Sir Samuel and his stepson started on in advance, on foot.

At the hotel Jack was to leave us, and be towed to a garage; but, in desperation, I murmured an appeal as he gave me an armful of rugs. "I must ask you about something," I whispered. "Can you come back in a little less than an hour, and look for me in the woods, somewhere just out of sight of the hotel?"

"Yes," he said. "I can and will. You may depend on me."

That was all, but I was comforted, and the rugs became suddenly light.

Rooms were secured, great stress being laid upon a good sitting-room (in case the important friend should call), and I unpacked as usual. When my work was done, I asked her ladyship's permission to go out for a little while. She looked suspicious, clawed her brains for an excuse to refuse, but, as there wasn't a buttonless glove, or a holey stocking among the party, she reluctantly gave me leave. I darted away, plunged into the forest, and did not stop walking until I had got well out of sight of the hotel. Then I sat down on a mossy log under a great tree, and looked about for Jack.

A man was coming. I jumped up eagerly, and went to meet him as he appeared among the trees.

It was Mr. Herbert Stokes.



CHAPTER XXX

"I followed you," he said.

"I thought so," said I. "It was like you."

"I want to talk to you," he explained.

"But I don't want to talk to you," I objected.

"You'll be sorry if you're rude. What I came to say is for your own good."

"I doubt that!" said I, looking anxiously down one avenue of trees after another, for a figure that would have been doubly welcome now.

"Well, I can easily prove it, if you'll listen."

"As you have longer legs than I have, I am obliged to listen."

"You won't regret it. Now, come, my dear little girl, don't put on any more frills with me. I'm gettin' a bit fed up with 'em."

(I should have liked to choke him with a whole mouthful of "frills," the paper kind you put on ham at Christmas; but as I had none handy, I thought it would only lead to undignified controversy to allude to them.)

"I had a little conversation about you with the Duchesse de Melun night before last," Bertie went on, with evident relish. "Ah, I thought that would make you blush. I say, you're prettier than ever when you do that! It was she began it. She asked me if I knew your name, and how Lady T. found you. Her Ladyship couldn't get any further than 'Elise,' for, if she knew any more, she'd forgotten it; but thanks to your friend the shuvver, I could go one better. When I told the duchess you called yourself d'Angely, or something like that, she said 'I was sure of it!' Now, I expect you begin to smell a rat—what?"

"I daresay you've been carrying one about in your pocket ever since," I snapped, "though I can't think what it has to do with me. I'm not interested in dead rats."

"This is your own rat," said Bertie, grinning. "What'll you give to know what the duchess told me about you?"

"Nothing," I said.

"Well, then, I'll be generous and let you have it for nothing. She told me she thought she recognized you, but until she heard the name, she supposed she must be mistaken; that it was only a remarkable resemblance between my stepmother's maid and a girl who'd run away under very peculiar circumstances from the house of a friend of hers. What do you think of that?"

"That the duchess is a cat," I replied, promptly.

"Most women are."

"In your set, perhaps."

"She said there was a man mixed up with the story, a rich middle-aged chap of the name of Charretier, with a big house in Paris and a new chateau he'd built, near Fontainebleau. She gave me a card to him."

"He's sure not to be at home," I remarked.

Bertie's face fell; but he brightened again. "Anyhow you admit you know him."

"One has all sorts of acquaintances," I drawled, with a shrug of my shoulders.

"You're a sly little kitten—if you're not a cat. You heard me say I thought of calling at the chateau."

"And you heard me say the owner wasn't at home."

"You seem well acquainted with his movements."

"I happened to see him, on his way south, at Avignon, some days ago."

"Did he see you?"

"Isn't that my affair—and his?"

"By Jove—you've got good cheek, to talk like this to your mistress's stepson! But maybe you think you won't have difficulty in finding a place that pays you better—what?"

"I couldn't find one to pay me much worse."

"Look here, my dear, I'm not out huntin' for repartee. I want to have an understanding with you."

"I don't see why."

"Yes, you do, well enough. You know I like you—in spite of your impudence."

"And I dislike you because of yours. Oh, do go away and leave me, Mr. Stokes."

"I won't. I've got a lot to say to you. I've only just begun, but you keep interruptin' me, and I can't get ahead."

"Finish then."

"Well, what I want to say is this. I always meant we should stop at Fontainebleau."

"Oh—you damaged your stepfather's car on purpose! He would be obliged to you."

"Not quite that. I intended to get them to have tea here, and while they were moonin' about I was going to have a chat with you. I was goin' to tell you about that card to Charretier, and somethin' else. That the duchess asked me where we would stop in Paris, and I told her at the best there is, of course—Hotel Athenee. She said she'd wire her friends you'd run away from, that they could find you there; and if Charretier wasn't at Fontainebleau when we passed through, these people would certainly know where to get at him. I warned you the other night, didn't I? that if you wouldn't be good and confide in me I'd find out what you refused to tell me yourself; and I have, you see. Clever, aren't I?"

"You're the hatefullest man I ever heard of!" I flung at him.

"Oh, I say! Don't speak too soon. You don't know all yet. If you don't want me to, I won't call on Charretier. Lady T. and her tuft-huntin' can go hang! And you shan't stop at the Athenee to be copped by the Duchess's friends, if you don't like. That's what I wanted to see you about. To tell you it all depends on yourself."

"How does it depend on myself?" I asked, cautiously.

"All you have to do, to get off scot free is to be a little kind to poor Bertie. You can begin by givin' him a kiss, here in the poetic and what-you-may-call-'em forest of Fontainebleau."

"I wouldn't kiss you if you were made of gold and diamonds, and I could have you melted down to spend!" I exclaimed. And as I delivered this ultimatum, I turned to run. His legs might be longer than mine, but I weighed about one-third as much as he, which was in my favour if I chose to throw dignity to the winds.

As I whisked away from him, he caught me by the dress, and I heard the gathers rip. I had to stop. I couldn't arrive at the hotel without a skirt.

"You're a cad—a cad!" I stammered.

"And you're a fool. Look here, I can lose you your job and have you sent to the prison where naughty girls go. See what I've got in my pocket."

Still grasping my frock, he scooped something out of an inner pocket of his coat, and held it for me to look at, in the hollow of his palm. I gave a little cry. It was Lady Turnour's gorgeous bursting sun.

"I nicked that off the dressin' table the other night, when you weren't looking. Has Lady T. been askin' for it?"

"No," I answered, speaking more to myself than to him. "She—she's had too much to think of. She didn't count her things that night; and at Nevers she didn't open the bag."

"So much the worse for you, my pet, when she does find out. She left her jewels in your charge. When I came into the room, they were all lyin' about on the dressin' table, and you were playin' with 'em."

"I was putting them back into her bag."

"So you say. Jolly careless of you not to know you hadn't put this thing back. It's about the best of the lot she hadn't got plastered on for the servants' ball."

"It was careless," I admitted. "But it was your fault. You came in, and were so horrid, and upset me so much that I forgot what I'd put into the bag already, and what I hadn't."

"Lady T. doesn't know I went back to her room."

"I'll tell her!" I cried.

"I'll bet you'll tell her, right enough. But I can tell a different story. I'll say I didn't go near the room. My story will be that I was walkin' through the woods this afternoon on my way to Charretier's chateau when I saw you with the thing in your hands, lookin' at it. Probably goin' to ask the shuvver to dispose of it for you—what? and share profits."

"Oh, you coward!" I exclaimed, and snatched the diamond brooch from him.

Instantly he let go my dress, laughing.

"That's right! That's what I wanted," he said. "Now you've got it, and you can keep it. I'll tell Lady T. where to look for it—unless you'll change your mind, and give me that kiss."

I was so angry, so stricken with horror and a kind of nightmare fear which I had not time to analyze, that I stood silent, trembling all over, with the brooch in my hand. How silly I had been to play his game for him, just like the poor stupid cat who pulled the hot chestnut out of the fire! I don't think any chestnut could ever have been as hot as that bursting sun!

I wanted to drop it in the grass, or throw it as far as I could see it, but dared not, because it would be my fault that it was lost, and Lady Turnour would believe Bertie's story all the more readily. She would think he had seen me with the jewel, and that I'd hidden it because I was afraid of what he might do.

"To kiss, or not to kiss. That's the question," laughed Bertie.

"Is it?" said Jack. And Jack's hand, inside Mr. Stokes's beautiful, tall collar, shook Bertie back and forth till his teeth chattered like castanets, and his good-looking pink face grew more and more like a large, boiled beetroot.

I had seen Jack coming, long enough to have counted ten before he came. But I didn't count ten. I just let him come.

Bertie could not speak: he could only gurgle. And if I had been a Roman lady in the amphitheatre of Nimes, or somewhere, I'm afraid I should have wanted to turn my thumb down.

"What was the beast threatening you with?" Jack wanted to know.

"The beast was threatening to make Lady Turnour think I'd stolen this brooch, which he'd taken himself," I panted, through the beatings of my heart.

"If you didn't kiss him?"

"Yes. And he was going to do lots of other horrid things, too. Tell Monsieur Charretier—and let my cousins come and find me at the Hotel Athenee, in Paris, and—"

"He won't do any of them. But there are several things I am going to do to him. Go away, my child. Run off to the house, as quick as you can."

I gasped. "What are you going to do to him?"

"Don't worry. I shan't hurt him nearly as much as he deserves. I'm only going to do what the Head must have neglected to do to him at school."



Bertie had come out into the woods with a neat little stick, which during part of our conversation he had tucked jauntily under his arm. It now lay on the ground. I saw Jack glance at it.

"Ah!"—I faltered. "Do—do you think you'd better?"

"I know I had. Go, child."

I went.

I had great faith in Jack, faith that he knew what was best for everyone.



CHAPTER XXXI

Unfortunately I forgot to ask for instructions as to how I should behave when I came to the hotel. And I had the bursting sun still in my hand.

I thought things over, as well as I could with a pounding pulse for every square inch in my body.

If I were a rabbit, I could scurry into my hole and "lay low" while other people fought out their destiny and arranged mine; but being a girl, tingling with my share of American pluck, and blazing with French fire, rabbits seemed to me at the instant only worthy of being made into pie.

Bertie, at this moment, was being made into pie—humble pie; and I don't doubt that the chauffeur, whom he had consistently tortured (because of me) would make him eat a large slice of himself when the humble pie was finished—also because of me. And because it was because of me, I knocked at the Turnours' sitting-room door with a bold, brave knock, as if I thought myself their social equal.

They had had tea, and were sitting about, looking graceful in the expectation of seeing Bertie and his French friend.

It was a disappointment to her ladyship to see only me, and she showed it with a frown, but Sir Samuel looked up kindly, as usual.

I laid the bursting sun on the table, and told them everything, very fast, without pausing to take breath, so that they wouldn't have time to stop me. But I didn't begin with the bursting sun, or even with the beating that Bertie was enjoying in the woods; I began with the Princess Boriskoff, and Lady Kilmarny; and I addressed Sir Samuel, from beginning to end. Somehow, I felt I had his sympathy, even when I rushed at the most embarrassing part, which concerned his stepson and the necktie.

Just as I'd told about the brooch, and Bertie's threat, and was coming to his punishment, another knock at the door produced the two young men, both pale, but Jack with a noble pallor, while Bertie's was the sick paleness of pain and shame.

"I've brought him to apologize to Miss d'Angely, in your presence, Sir Samuel, and Lady Turnour's," said the chauffeur. "I see you know something of the story."

"They know all now," said I. For Bertie's face proved the truth of my words, if they had needed proof. His eyes were swimming in tears, and he looked like a whipped school-boy.

But suddenly a whim roused her ladyship to speak up in his defence—or at least to criticize the chauffeur for presuming to take her stepson's chastisement into his hands.

"What right have you to set yourself up as Elise's champion, anyway?" she demanded, shrilly. "Have you and she been getting engaged to each other behind our backs?"

"It would be my highest happiness to be engaged to Miss d'Angely if she would marry me," said Jack, with such a splendidly sincere ring in his voice that I could almost have believed him if I hadn't known he was in love with another woman. "But I am no match for her. It's only as her friend that I have acted in her defence, as any decent man has a right to act when a lady is insulted."

Then Bertie apologized, in a dull voice, with his eyes on the ground, and mumbled a kind of confession, mixed with self-justification. He had pocketed the brooch, yes, meaning to play a trick, but had intended no harm, only a little fun—pretty girl—lady's-maids didn't usually mind a bit of a flirtation and a present or two; how was he to know this one was different? Sorry if he had caused annoyance; could say no more—and so on, and so on, until I stopped him, having heard enough.

Poor Sir Samuel was crestfallen, but not too utterly crushed to reproach his bride with unwonted sharpness, when she would have scolded me for carelessness in not putting the brooch away. "Let the girl alone!" he grumbled, "she's a very good girl, and has behaved well. I wish I could say the same of others nearer to me."

"Of course, Sir Samuel, after what's happened, you wouldn't want me to stay in your employ, any more than I would want to stay," said Jack. "Unfortunately the Aigle will be hung up two or three days, till new pinions can be fitted in, at the garage. I can send them out from Paris, if you like; but no doubt you'll prefer to have my engagement with you to come to an end to-day. Mr. Stokes has driven the car, and can again."

"Not if I have anything to say about it," murmured her ladyship. "Scattering the poor thing's teeth all over the place!"

"There are plenty of good chauffeurs to be got at short notice in Paris," Jack suggested, "and you are certain to find one by the time you're ready to start."

"You're right, Dane. We'll have to part company," said Sir Samuel. "As for Elise here—"

"She'll have to go too," broke in her ladyship. "It's most inconvenient, and all your stepson's fault—though she's far from blameless, in my humble opinion, whatever yours may be. Don't tell me that a young man will go about flirting with lady's maids unless they encourage him!"

"I shall leave of course, immediately," said I, my ears tingling.

"Who wants you to do anything else? Though nobody cares for my convenience. I can always go to the wall. But thank heaven there are maids in Paris as well as chauffeurs. And talking of that combination, my advice to you is, if Dane's willing to have you, don't turn up your nose at him, but marry him as quickly as you can. I suppose even in your class of life there's such a thing as gossip."

I was scarlet. Somehow I got out of the room, and while I was scurrying my few belongings into my dressing bag, and spreading out the red satin frock to leave as a legacy to Lady Turnour (in any case, nothing could have induced me to wear it again), Sir Samuel sent me up an envelope containing a month's wages, and something over. I enclosed the "something over" in another envelope, with a grateful line of refusal, and sent it back.

Thus ends my experience as a motor maid!

* * * * *

What was going to become of me I didn't know, but while I was jamming in hatpins and praying for ideas, there came a knock at the door. A pencilled note from the late chauffeur, signed hastily, "Yours ever, J.D.," and inviting me down to the couriers' dining-room for a conference. There would be no one there but ourselves at this hour, he said, and we should be able to talk over our plans in peace.

What a place to say farewell forever to the only man I ever had, could or would love—a couriers' dining room, with grease spots on the tablecloth! However, there was no help for it, since I was facing the world with fifty francs, and could not afford to pay for a romantic background.

After all that had happened, and especially after certain impertinent references made to our private affairs, I felt a new and very embarrassing shyness in meeting the man with whom I'd been playing that pleasant little game called "brother and sister." He was waiting for me in the couriers' room, which was even dingier and had more grease spots than I had fancied, and I hurried into speech to cover my nervousness.

"I don't know how I'm going to thank you for all you've done for me," I stammered. "That horrible Bertie—"

"Let's not talk of him," said Jack. "Put him out of your mind for ever. He has no place there, or in your life—and no more have any of the incidents that led up to him. You've had a very bad time of it, poor little girl, and now—"

"Oh, I haven't," I exclaimed. "I've been happier than ever before in my life. That is—I—it was all so novel, and like a play—"

"Well, now the play's over," Jack broke in, pitying my evident embarrassment. "I wanted to ask you if you'd let me advise and perhaps help you. We have been brother and sister, you know. Nothing can take that away from us."

"No," said I, in a queer little voice. "Nothing can."

"You want to go to England, I know," he went on. "And—if you'll forgive my taking liberties, you haven't much money in hand, you've almost told me. I suppose you haven't changed your mind about your relations in Paris? You wouldn't like to go back to them, or write, and tell them firmly that you won't marry the person they seem to have set their hearts on for you? That you've made your own choice, and intend to abide by it; but that if they'll be sensible and receive you, you're willing to stop with them until—until the man in England—"

"What man in England?" I cut him short, in utter bewilderment.

"Why, the—er—you didn't tell me his name, of course, but that rich chap you expected to meet when you got over to England. Don't you think it would be better if he came to you at your cousins', if they—"

"There isn't any 'rich chap'," I exclaimed. "I don't know what you mean—oh, yes, I do, too. I did speak about someone who was very rich, and would be kind to me. I rather think—I remember now—I guessed you imagined it was a man; but that seemed the greatest joke, so I didn't try to undeceive you. Fancy your believing that, all this time, though, and thinking about it!"

"I've thought of it on an average once every three minutes," said Jack.

"You're chaffing now, of course. Why, the person I hoped might be kind to me in England is an old lady—oh, but such a funny old lady!—who wanted me to be her companion, and said, no matter when I came, if it were years from now, I must let her know, for she would like to have me with her to help chase away a dragon of a maid she's afraid of. I met her only once, in the train the night before I arrived at Cannes; but she and I got to be the greatest friends, and her bulldog, Beau—."

"Her bulldog, Beau!"

"A perfect lamb, though he looks like a cross between a crocodile and a gnome. The old lady's name is Miss Paget—"

"My aunt!"

I stared at Jack, not knowing how to take this exclamation. The few Englishmen I met when mamma and I were together, or when I lived with the Milvaines, were rather fond of using that ejaculation when it was apparently quite irrelevant. If you told a youthful Englishman that you were not allowed to walk or bicycle alone in the Bois, he was as likely as not to say "My aunt!" In fact, whatever surprised him was apt to elicit this cry. I have known several young men who gave vent to it at intervals of from half to three-quarters of an hour; but I had never before heard Jack make the exclamation, so when I had looked at him and he had looked at me in an emotional kind of silence for a few seconds, I asked him, "Why 'My aunt'?"

"Because she is my aunt."

"Surely not my Miss Paget?"

"I should think it highly improbable that your Miss Paget and my Miss Paget could be the same, if you hadn't mentioned her bulldog, Beau. There can't be a quantity of Miss Pagets going about the world with bulldogs named Beau. Only my Miss Paget never does go about the world. She hates travelling."

"So does mine. She said that being in a train was no pursuit for a gentlewoman."

"That sounds like her. She's quite mad."

"She seemed very kind."

"I'm glad she did—to you. She has seemed rather the contrary to me."

"Oh, what did she do to you?"

"Did her best to spoil my life, that's all—with the best intentions, no doubt. Still, by Jove, I thank her! If it hadn't been for my aunt I should never have seen—my sister."

"Thank you. You're always kind—and polite. Do you mean it was because of her you took to what you call 'shuvving'?"

"Exactly."

"But I thought—I thought—"

"What?"

"I—don't dare tell you."

"I should think you might know by this time that you can tell me anything. You must tell me!"

"I thought it was the beautiful lady who was with you the first time you saw the battlement garden at Beaucaire, who ruined your life?"

"Beautiful lady—battlement garden? Good heavens, what extraordinary things we seem to have been thinking about each other: I with my man in England; you with your beautiful lady—"

"She's a different thing. You talked to me about her," I insisted. "Surely you must remember?"

"I remember the conversation perfectly. I didn't explain my meaning as a professor demonstrates a rule in higher mathematics, but I thought you couldn't help understanding well enough, especially a vain little thing like you."

"I, vain? Oh!"

"You are, aren't you?"

"I—well, I'm afraid I am, a little."

"You could never have looked in the glass if you weren't. Didn't you see, or guess, that I was talking about an Ideal whom I had conjured into being, as a desirable companion in that garden? I can't understand from the way the conversation ran, how you could have helped it. When I first went to the battlement garden I was several years younger, steeped with the spirit of Provence and full of thoughts of Nicolete. I was just sentimental enough to imagine that such a girl as Nicolete was with me there, and always afterward I associated the vision of the Ideal with that garden. I said to myself, that I should like to come there again with that Ideal in the flesh. And then—then I did come again—with you."

"But you said—you thought of her always—that because you couldn't have her—or something of the sort—"

"Well, all that was no surprise to you, was it? You must have known perfectly well—ever since that night at Avignon when you let your hair down, anyhow, if not before, that I was trying desperately hard not to be an idiot about you—and not exactly radiant with joy in the thought that whoever the man was who would get you, it couldn't be I?"

"O-oh!" I breathed a long, heavenly breath, that seemed to let all the sorrows and worries pour out of my heart, as the air rushed out of my lungs. "O-oh, you can't mean, truly and really, that you're in love with Me, can you?"

"Surely it isn't news to you."

"I should think it was!" I exclaimed, rapturously. "Oh, I'm so happy!"

"Another scalp—though a humble one?"

"Don't be a beast. I'm so horribly in love with you, you know. It's been hurting so dreadfully."

Then I rather think he said "My darling!" but I'm not quite sure, for I was so busy falling into his arms, and he was holding me so very, very tightly.

We stayed like that for a long time, not saying anything, and not even thinking, but feeling—feeling. And the couriers' dining-room was a princess's boudoir in an enchanted palace. The grease spots were stars and moons that had rolled out of heaven to see how two poor mortals looked when they were perfectly happy. Just a poor chauffeur and a motor maid: but the world was theirs.



CHAPTER XXXII

After a while we talked again, and explained all the cross-purposes to each other, with the most interesting pauses in between the explanations. And Jack told me about himself, and Miss Paget.

It seems that her only sister was his mother, and she had been in love with his father before he met the sister. The father's name was Claud, and Jack was named after him. It was Miss Paget's favourite name, because of the man she had loved. But the first Claud wasn't very lucky. He lost all his own money and most of his wife's, and died in South America, where he'd gone in the hope of making more. Then the wife, Jack's mother, died too, while he was at Eton. After that Miss Paget's house was his home. Whenever he was extravagant at Oxford, as he was sometimes, she would pay his debts quite happily, and tell him that everything she had would be his some day, so he was not to bother about money. Accordingly, he didn't bother, but lived rather a lazy life—so he said—and enjoyed himself. A couple of years before I met him he got interested, through a friend, in a newly invented motor, which they both thought would be a wonderful success. Jack tried to get his aunt interested, too, but she didn't like the friend who had invented it—seemed jealous of Jack's affection for him—and refused to have anything to do with the affair. Jack had gone so far, however, while taking her consent for granted, that he felt bound to go on; and when Miss Paget would have nothing to do with floating the new invention, Jack sold out the investments of his own little fortune (all that was left of his mother's money), putting everything at his friend's disposal. Miss Paget was disgusted with him for doing this, and when the motor wouldn't mote and the invention wouldn't float, she just said, "I told you so!"

It was at this time, Jack went on to tell me, that Miss Paget bought Beau. She had had another dog, given her by Jack, which died, and she collected Beau herself. Only a few days after Beau's arrival, Jack went down into the country to see his aunt and talk things over; for she had brought him up to expect to be her heir; and as she wanted him with her continually, as if he had been her son, she had objected to his taking up any profession. Now that he'd lost his own money in this unfortunate speculation, he felt he ought to do something not to be dependent upon her, his income of two hundred a year having been sunk with the unfloatable motor invention. He meant to ask Miss Paget to lend him enough to go in as partner with another friend, who had a very thriving motor business, and to suggest paying her back so much a year. But everything was against him on that visit to his aunt's country house.

In the first place, she was in a very bad humour with him, because he had gone against her wishes, and she didn't want to hear anything more about motors or motor business. Then, there was Beau, as a tertium quid.

Beau had been bought from a dreadful man who had probably stolen, and certainly ill-treated him. The dog was very young, and owing to his late owner's cruelty, feared and hated the sight of a man. Since she had had him Miss Paget had done her very best to spoil the poor animal, encouraging him to growl at the men-servants, and laughing when he frightened away any male creature who had come about the place. While she and Jack were arguing over money and motors, who should stroll in but Beau, who at sight of a stranger—a man—closeted with his indulgent mistress, flew into a rage. He seized Jack by the trouser-leg and began to worry it, and Jack had to choke him before the dog would let go his grip.

The sight of this dreadful deed threw Miss Paget into hysterics. She shrieked that her nephew was cruel, ungrateful—that he had never loved her, that he cared only for her money, and now that he grudged her the affection of a dog with which he had had nothing to do; that the dog's dislike for him was a warning to her, and made her see him in his true light at last. "Go—go—out of my sight—or I'll set my poor darling at you!" she cried, and Jack went, after saying several rather frank things.

At heart he was fond of his aunt, in spite of her eccentricities, and believed that she was of him, therefore he expected a letter of apology for her injustice and a request to come back. But no such letter ever arrived. Perhaps Miss Paget thought it was his place to apologize, and was waiting for him to do so. In any case, they had never seen each other again; and after a few weeks, Jack received a formal note from his aunt's solicitor saying that, as she realized now he had "no real affection for her or hers" he need look for no future advantages from her, but was at liberty to take up any line of business he chose. Miss Paget would "no longer attempt to interfere with his wishes or direct his affairs."

This must have been a pleasant letter for a penniless young man, just robbed of all his future prospects. His own money gone, and no hope of any to put into a profession or business! Jack lived as he could for some months, trying for all sorts of positions, making a few guineas by sketches and motoring articles for newspapers, and somehow contriving to keep out of debt. He went to France to "write up" a great automobile race, as a special commission; but the paper which had given the commission—a new one devoted to the interests of motoring—suddenly failed. Jack found himself stranded; advertised for a position as chauffeur, and got it. There was the history which he "hadn't inflicted on me before, lest I should be bored."

He was interested to hear of Miss Paget's journey to Italy, and knew all about the cousin who had died, leaving her money which she didn't need, and a castle in Italy which she didn't want. He laughed when I told him how the redoubtable Simpkins refused to trust herself upon that "great nasty wet thing," which was the Channel: but nothing could hold his attention firmly except our affairs. For his affairs and my affairs were not separate any longer. They were joined together for weal or woe. Whatever happened, however imprudent the step might be, he decided that we must be married. We loved each other; each was the other's world, and nothing must part us. Besides, said Jack, I needed a protector. I had no home, and he could not have me persecuted by creatures who produced Corn Plasters. His idea was to take me to England at once, and have me there promptly made Mrs. John Dane, by special licence. He had a few pounds, and a few things which he could sell would bring in a few more. Then, with me for an incentive, he should get something to do that was worth doing.

I said "Yes" to everything, and Jack darted away to converse with a nice man he had met in the garage, who had a motor, and was going to Paris almost immediately. If he had not gone yet, perhaps he would take us.

Luckily he had not gone, and he did take us. He took us to the Gare du Nord, where we would just have time to eat something, and catch the boat train for Calais. We should be in London in the morning, and Jack would apply for a special licence as early as possible.

I stood guarding our humble heap of luggage, while Jack spent his hard-earned sovereigns for our tickets, when suddenly I heard a voice which sounded vaguely familiar. It was broken with distress and excitement; still I felt sure I had heard it before, and turned quickly, exclaiming "Miss Paget!"

There she was, with a dressing bag in one hand, and a broken dog-leash in the other. Tears were running down her fat face (not so fat as it had been) under spectacles, and her false front was put on anyhow.

"Oh, my dear girl!" she wailed, without showing the slightest sign of astonishment at sight of me. "What a mercy you've turned up, but it's just like you. Have you seen my Beau anywhere?"

"No," I said, rather stiffly, for I couldn't forgive her or her dog for their treatment of my Jack.

"Oh, dear, what shall I do!" she exclaimed. "He hates railway stations. You can't think the awful time we've had since you left me in the train at Cannes. And now he's broken his leash, and run away, and I can't speak any French, except to ask for hot water in Italian, and I don't see how I'm going to find my darling again. They'll snatch him up, to fling him into some terrible, murderous waggon, and take him to a lethal home, or whatever they call it. For heaven's sake, go and ask everybody where he is—and if you find him you can have anything on earth I've got, especially my Italian castle which I can't sell. You can come to England with me and Beau, when you've got him, and I'll make you happy all the rest of your life. Oh, go—do go. I'll look after your luggage."

"It's half your own nephew's, Jack Dane's, luggage," said I, breathless and pulsing. "I'm going to England with him, and he's going to make me happy all the rest of my life, for we mean to be married, in spite of your cruelty which has made him poor, and turned him into a chauffeur. But—here he comes now. And—why, Miss Paget, there's Beau walking with him, without any leash. Beau must remember him."

"Beau with Jack Dane!" gasped the old lady. "Jack Dane's found Beau? Beau's forgiven him! Then so will I. You can both have the Italian castle—and everything that goes with it. And everything else that's mine, too, except Beau."

"Hello, aunt, here's your dog," said Jack.

Beau licked his foot.



* * * * *



Transcriber's note:

In converting this book the following evident typographical errors were corrected, causing differences from the original: p. 65, correct spelling of "Gaspard de Besse"; p. 79, correct accent in "Hyeres"; p. 102, correct spelling of "Le Buisson Ardent"; p. 140, insert t in "At first"; p. 291, change "be began" to "he began."

THE END