All that evening Miss Bellairs was not observed—and Deane watched her very closely—to address a word to Charlie Ellerton; even ‘good-night’ was avoided by a premature disappearance and unexpected failure to return. Perhaps it was part of the same policy of seclusion which made her persuade Lady Deane to travel to Paris with her in one compartment and relegate the men to another—a proposal which the banished accepted by an enthusiastic majority of two to one. The General foresaw an infinity of quiet naps and Deane uninterrupted smoking; Charlie alone chafed against the necessary interruption of his bold campaign, but, in face of Dora’s calm coldness of aspect, he did not dare to lift up his voice.
Lady Deane was so engrossed in the study—or the search for opportunities of study—of sides of life with which she was unfamiliar as to be, for the most part, blind to what took place immediately around her. General Bellairs himself (who vaguely supposed that some man might try to make love to his daughter five years hence, and thereupon be promptly sent off with a flea in his ear) was not more unconscious than she that there was, had been, or might be anything, as the phrase runs, ‘between’ the two junior members of the party. Lady Deane had no hints to give and no questions to ask; she seated herself placidly in a corner and began to write in a large note-book. She had been unwillingly compelled to ‘scamp’ Marseilles, but, as she wrote, she found that the rough notes she was copying, aided by fresh memory, supplied her with an ample fund of material. Alternately she smiled contentedly to herself, and gazed out of the window with a preoccupied air. Clearly a plot was brewing-, and the author was grateful to Dora for restricting her interruptions to an occasional impatient sigh and the taking up and dropping again of her Tauchnitz.
With the men tongues moved more.
“Well, General,” said Deane, “what’s Miss Dora’s ultimatum about your staying in Paris?”
Charlie pricked up his ears and buried his face behind La Vie Parisienne.
“You’ll think me very weak, Deane,” rejoined the General, with an apologetic laugh, “but I’ve promised to go straight on if she wants me to.”
“And does she?”
“I don’t know what the child has got in her head, but she says she’ll tell me when she gets to Paris. We shall have a day with you anyhow; I don’t think she’s so set on not staying as she was, but I don’t profess to understand her fancies. Still, as you see, I yield to them.”
“Man’s task in the world,” said Deane. “Eh, Charlie? What are you hiding behind that paper for?”
“I was only looking at the pictures.”
“Quite enough too. You’re going to stay in Paris, aren’t you?”
“Don’t know yet, old fellow. It depends on whether I get a letter calling me back or not.”
“Hang it, one might as well be in a house where the shooting turns out a fraud. Nobody knows that he won’t have a wire any morning and have to go back to town. My wife ‘ll be furious if you desert her, General.”
“Oh, I hope it won’t come to that.”
“I hope awfully that I shall be able to stay,” said Charlie, with obvious sincerity.
“Then,” observed Deane with a slight smile, “if the General and Miss Bellairs leave us you can take my wife about.”
“I should think you might take her yourself,” and he gently kicked Deane. He was afraid of arousing the General’s dormant suspicions.
It was late at night when they arrived in Paris, but the faithful Laing was on the platform to meet them, and received them with a warm greeting. While the luggage was being collected by Deane’s man, they stood and talked on the platform. Presently the General, struck by a sudden thought, asked:
“I suppose nothing came for us at Cannes, oh, Laing? You said you’d bring anything on, you know.”
Laing interrupted a pretty speech which he was trying to direct into Dora’s inattentive ears.
“Beg pardon, General?”
“No letters for any of us before you left Cannes?”
“No, Gen—” he began, but suddenly stopped. His mouth remained open and his glass fell from his eye.
The General, not waiting to hear more than the first word, had rushed of to hail a cab and Deane was escorting his wife. Dora and Charlie stood waiting for the unfinished speech.
The end came slowly and with a prodigious emphasis of despair.
“Oh, by Jove!”
“Well, Mr. Laing?” said Dora.
“The morning you left—just after—there were two telegrams.”
“For me?” said each of his auditors.
“One for each of you, but
“Oh, give me mine.”
“Hand over mine, old chap.”
“I—I haven’t got ‘em.”
“What?”
“I—I’m awfully sorry, I.——I forgot ‘em.”
“Oh, how tiresome of you, Mr. Laing!”
“Send ‘em round first thing to-morrow, Laing.”
“But—but I don’t know where I put ‘em. I know I laid ‘em down. Then I took ‘em up. Then I put ‘em—where the deuce did I put ‘em? Here’s a go, Miss Bellairs! I say, I am an ass!”
No contradiction assailed him. His victims glared reproachfully at him.
“I must have left them at Cannes. I’ll wire first thing in the morning, Miss Bellairs; I’ll get up as soon as ever the office is open. I say, do forgive me.”
“Well, Mr. Laing, I’ll try, but——”
“Laing! Here! My wife wants you,” shouted Sir Roger, and the criminal, happy to escape, ran away, leaving Dora and Charlie alone.
“They must have been fromthem,” murmured Dora.
“No doubt; and that fool Laing——”
“What has he done with them?”
“Lit his pipe with them, I expect.”
“Oh, what shall we do?”
“I don’t know.”
“What—what do you think they said, Mr. Ellerton?”
“How can I tell? Perhaps that the marriage was off!”
“Oh!” escaped from Dora.
“Perhaps that it was going on.”
“It’s worse than ever. They may have asked for answers.”
“Probably.”
“And they won’t have written here!”
“Sure not to have.”
“And—and I shan’t know what to do. I—I believe it was to say he had broken off the marriage.”
“Is the wish father to the thought?”
The lights of the station flickered, but Charlie saw, or thought he saw, a hasty unpremeditated gesture of protest.
“Dolly!” he whispered.
“Hush, hush! How can you now—before we know?”
“The cab’s waiting,” called Deane. “Come along.”
They got in in silence. The General and the Deanes went first, and the three young people followed in a second vehicle. It was but just twelve, and the boulevards were gay and full of people.
Suddenly, as they were near the Opera, they saw the tall figure of an unmistakable Englishman walking away from them down the Avenue de l’Opera. Dora clutched Charlie’s arm with a convulsive grip.
“Hullo, what’s the—” he began, but a second pinch enforced silence.
“See that chap?” asked Laing, pointing to the figure. “He’s at my hotel.”
“Is he?” said Dora in a faint voice.
“Yes, I’ve got a good deal of amusement out of him. He oughtn’t to be out so late though, and by himself, too!”
“Who is it?” asked Charlie.
“I don’t know his name.”
“And why oughtn’t he to be out?”
“Because he’s on his honeymoon,”
“What?” cried Dora.
“Just married,” explained Laing. “Wife’s a tallish girl, fair, rather good-looking; looks standoffish though.”
“You—you’re sure they’re married, Mr. Laing?” gasped Dora, and Charlie, in whom her manner had awakened a suspicion of the truth, also waited eagerly for the reply.
“What, Miss Bellairs?” asked Laing in surprise.
“Oh, I mean—I mean you haven’t made a mistake?”
“Well, they’re together all day, and nobody’s with them except a lady’s-maid. I should think that’s good enough.”
With a sigh Dora sank back against the cushions. They were at the hotel now; the others had already entered, and, bidding Laing a hearty good-night, Dora ran in, followed closely by Charlie. He did not overtake her before she found her father.
“Well, Dolly,” said the General, “there’s no letter.”
“Oh,” cried Dolly, “I’ll stay as long as ever you like, papa.”
“That’s right,” said Deane. “And you, Charlie?”
Charlie took his cue.
“A month if you like.”
“Capital! Now for a wash—come along, Maud—and then supper!”
Dora lingered behind the others, and Charlie with her. Directly they were alone, he asked:
“What does it all mean?”
She sat down, still panting with agitation.
“Why—why, that man we saw—the man Mr. Laing says is on his honeymoon, is—is——”
“Yes, yes?”
“Mr. Ashforth!”
“Dolly! And his wife! By Jove! It’s an exact description of Mary Travers!”
“The telegrams were to say the marriage was to be at once.”
“Yes, and—they’re married!”
“Yes!”
A short pause marked the astounding conclusion. Then Charlie came up very close and whispered:
“Are you broken-hearted, Dolly?”
She turned her face away with a blush.
“Are you, Dolly?”
“I’m very much ashamed of myself,” she murmured. “Oh, Mr. Ellerton, not just yet!” and in deference to her entreaty Charlie had the grace to postpone what he was about to do.
When the supper was ready Sir Roger Deane looked round the table inquiringly.
“Well,” said he, “what is it to be?”
“Champagne—champagne in magnums!” cried Charlie Ellerton, with a ringing laugh.
Miss Bussey was much relieved when the doctor pronounced her convalescent and allowed her to come downstairs. To fall ill on an outing is always exasperating, but beyond that she felt that her enforced seclusion was particularly unfortunate at the moment. Here were two young people, not engaged nor going to be engaged to one another; and for three days or more circumstances had abandoned them to an inevitable and unchaperoned tjte-`-tjte! Mary made light of it; she relied on the fraternal relationship, but that was, after all, a fiction, quite incapable, in Miss Bussey’s opinion, of supporting the strain to which It had been subjected. Besides Mary’s sincerity appeared doubtful; the kind girl, anxious to spare her aunt worry, made light of the difficulties of her position, but Miss Bussey detected a restlessness in her manner which clearly betrayed uneasiness. Here, of course, Miss Bussey was wrong; neither Mary nor John were the least self-conscious; they felt no embarrassment, but, poor creatures, wore out their spirits in a useless vigil over the letter-rack.
Miss Bussey was restored to active life on the morning after the party from Cannes arrived in Paris, and she hastened to emphasize the fact of her return to complete health by the unusual effort of coming down to breakfast. She was in high feather, and her cheery conversation lifted, to some extent, the gloom which had settled on her young friends. While exhorting to patience she was full of hope, and dismissed as chimerical all the darker explanations which the disconsolate lovers invented to account for the silence their communications had met with. Under her influence the breakfast-table became positively cheerful, and at last all the three burst into a hearty laugh at one of the old lady’s little jokes.
At this moment Arthur Laing entered the room. His brow was clouded. He had searched his purse, his cigar-case, the lining of his hat—in fact every depository where a careful man would be likely to bestow documents whose existence he wished to remember; as no careful man would put such things in the pocket of his ‘blazer’, he had not searched there; thus the telegrams had not appeared, and the culprit was looking forward, with some alarm, to the reception which would await him when he ‘turned up’ to lunch with his friends, as he had promised to do. Hardly, however, had he sat down to his coffee when his sombre thoughts were cleared away by the extraordinary spectacle of young Mr. and Mrs. Ashforth hobnobbing with their maid, the latter lady appearing quite at home and leading the gayety and the conversation. Laing laid down his roll and his knife and looked at them in undisguised amazement.
For a moment doubt of his cherished theory began to assail his mind. He heard the old lady call Ashforth “John;” that was a little strange, and it was rather strange that John answered by saying: “That must be as you wish; I am entirely at your disposal.” And yet, reflected Laing, was it very strange, after all? In his own family they had an old retainer who called all the children, whatever their age, by their Christian names, and was admitted to a degree of intimacy hardly distinguishable from that accorded to a relative.
Laing, weighing the evidence pro and contra, decided that there was an overwhelming balance in favor of his old view, and dismissed the matter with the comment that, if it ever befell him to go on a wedding-tour, he would ask his wife to take a maid with rather less claims on her kindness and his toleration.
That same morning the second pair of telegrams, forwarded by post from Cannes, duly arrived. Dora and Charlie, reading them in the light of their recent happy information, found them most kind and comforting, although in reality they, apart from their missing forerunners, told the recipients nothing at all. John’s ran: “Am in Paris at European. Please write. Anxious to hear. Everything decided for the best.—John.” Mary’s to Charlie was even briefer; it said, “Am here at European. Why no answer to last?”
“It’s really very kind of Mr. Ashforth,” said Dora to Charlie, as they strolled in the garden of the Tuileries, “to make such a point of what I think. I expect the wire that stupid Mr. Laing lost was just to tell me the date of the marriage.”
“Not a doubt of it. Miss Tr—Mrs. Ashforth’s wire to me makes that clear. They want to hear that we’re not desperately unhappy. Well, we aren’t, are we, Dolly?”
“Well, perhaps not.”
“Isn’t it extraordinary how we mistook our feelings? Of course, though, it’s natural in you. You had never been through anything of the sort before. How could you tell whether it was the real thing or not?”
Dora shot a glance out of the corner of her eye at her lover, but did not disclaim the innocence he imputed to her; she knew men liked to think that, and why shouldn’t they, poor things? She seized on his implied admission and carried the war into his country.
“But you,—you who are so experienced—how did you come to make such a mistake?”
Charlie was not at a loss.
“It wasn’t a mistakethen,” he said. “I was quite right then. Mary Travers was about the nicest girl I had ever seen. I thought her as charming as a girl could be.”
“Oh, you did! Then why——”
“My eyes have been opened since then.”
“What did that?”
“Why don’t you ever pronounce my name?”
“Never mind your name. What opened your eyes?”
“Why, yours, of course.”
“What nonsense! They’re very nice about it, aren’t they? Do you think we ought to call?”
“Shall you feel it awkward?”
“Yes, a little. Shan’t you? Still we must let them know we’re here. Will you write to Mrs. Ashforth?”
“I suppose I’d better. After lunch ‘ll do, won’t it?”
“Oh, yes. And I’ll write a note to him. I expect they won’t be staying here long.”
“I hope not. Hullo, it’s a quarter past twelve. We must be getting back. Laing’s coming to lunch.”
“Where arc the Deanes?”
“Lady Deane’s gone to Belleville with your father to see slums, and Roger’s playing tennis with Laing. He said we weren’t to wait lunch. Are you hungry, Dolly?”
“Not very. It seems only an hour since breakfast.”
“How charming of you! We’ve been walking here since ten o’clock.”
“Mr. Ellerton, will you be serious for a minute? I want to say something important. When we meet the Ashforths there mustn’t be a word said about—about—you know.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, I couldn’t! So soon! Surely you see that. Why, it would be hardly civil to them, would it, apart from anything else?”
“Well, it might look rather casual.”
“And I positively couldn’t face John Ashforth. You promise, don’t you?”
“It’s a nuisance, because, you see, Dolly——
“You’re not to get into the habit of saying ‘Dolly’. At least not yet.”
“Presently?”
“If you’re good. Now promise!”
“All right.”
“We’re not engaged.”
“All right.”
“Nor thinking of it,”
“Rather not.”
“That’s very nice of you, and when the Ashforths are gone——”
“I shall be duly rewarded?”
“Oh, we’ll see. Do come along. Papa hates being kept waiting for his meals, and they must have finished their slums long ago.”
They found Lady Deane and the General waiting for them, and the latter proposed an adjournment to a famous restaurant near the Opera. Thither they repaired, and ordered their lunch.
“Deane and Laing will find out where we’ve gone and follow,” said the General. “We won’t wait,” and he resumed his conversation with Lady Deane on the events of the morning.
A moment later the absentees came in; Sir Roger in his usual leisurely fashion, Laing; hurriedly. The latter held in his hand two telegrams, or the crumpled dibris thereof. He rushed up to the table and panted out, “Found ‘em in the pocket of my blazer—must have put ‘em there—stupid ass—never thought of it—put it on for tennis—awfully sorry.”
Wasting no time in reproaches, Dora and Charlie grasped their recovered property.
“Excuse me!” they cried simultaneously, and opened the envelopes. A moment later both leant back in their chairs, the pictures of helpless bewilderment.
Dora had read: “Marriage broken off. Coming to you 28th. Write directions—European, Paris.”
Charlie had read: “Engagement at end. Aunt and I coming to Paris—European, on 28th. Can you meet?”
Lady Deane was writing in her notebook. The General, Sir Roger, and Laing were busy with the waiter, the menu, and the wine-list. Quick as thought the lovers exchanged telegrams. They read, and looked at one another.
“What does it mean?” whispered Dora.
“You never saw anything like the lives those ragpickers lead, Dora,” observed Lady Deane, looking up from her task. “I was talking to one this morning and he said——”
“Maitre d’hotel for me,” broke in Sir Roger.
“I haven’t a notion,” murmured Charlie.
“Look here, what’s your liquor, Laing?”
“Anything; with this thirst on me——”
“There are ample materials for a revolution more astonishing and sanguinary——”
“Nonsense, General, yon must have something to drink.”
“Can they have changed their minds again, Dolly?”
“They must have, if Mr. Laing is——”
“Dry? I should think I was. So would you be, if you’d been playing tennis.”
Laing cut across the currents of conversation:
“Hope no harm done, Miss Bellairs, about that wire?”
“I—I—I don’t think so.”
“Or yours, Charlie?”
Charlie took a hopeful view.
“Upon my honor, Laing, I’m glad you hid it.”
“Oh, I see!” cried Laing. “Tip for the wrong ‘un, eh, and too late to put it on now?”
“You’re not far off,” answered Charlie Ellerton.
“Roger, is it to-night that the General is going to take me to the——”
“Hush! Not before Miss Bellairs, my dear! Consider her filial feelings. You and the General must make a quiet bolt of it. We’re only going to the Palais-Royal.”
The arrival of fish brought a momentary pause, but the first mouthful was hardly swallowed when Arthur Laing started, hunted hastily for his eyeglass, and stuck it in his eye.
“Yes, it is them,” said he. “See, Charlie, that table over there. They’ve got their backs to us, but lean see ‘em in the mirror.”
“See who?” asked Charlie in an irritable tone.
“Why, those honeymooners. I say, Lady Deane, it’s a queer thing to have a lady’s-maid to breakf—Why, by Jove, she’s with them now! Look!”
His excited interest aroused the attention of the whole party, and they looked across the long room.
“Ashforth’s their name,” concluded Laing. “I heard the Abigail call him Ashforth; and the lady is——”
He was interrupted by the clatter of a knife and fork falling on a plate. He turned in the direction whence the sound came.
Dora Bellairs leant back in her chair, her hands in her lap; Charlie Ellerton had hidden himself behind the wine-list. Lady Deane, her husband, and the General gazed inquiringly at Dora.
At the same instant there came a shrill little cry from the other end of the room. The mirror had served Mary Travers as well as it had Laing. For a moment she spoke hastily to her companion; then she and John rose, and, with radiant smiles on their faces, advanced toward their friends. The long-expected meeting had come; at last.
Dora sat still, in consternation. Charlie, peeping out from behind his menu, saw the approach.
“Now, in Heaven’s name,” he groaned, “are they married or aren’t they?” and having said this he awaited the worst.
Suum cuique: to the Man belongeth courage in great things, but in affairs of small moment Woman is pre-eminent. Charlie Ellerton was speechless; Dora Bellairs, by a supreme effort, rose on shaking legs and advanced with outstretched hands to meet John Ashforth.
“Mr. Ashforth, I declare! Who would have thought of meeting you here?” she exclaimed; and she added in an almost imperceptible, mysterious whisper, “Hush!”
John at once understood that he was to make no reference to the communications which had resulted in this happy meeting. He expressed a friendly gratification in appropriate words. Dora began to breathe again; everything was passing off well. Suddenly she glanced from John to Mary. Mary stood alone, about three yards from the table, gazing at Charlie. Charlie sat as though paralyzed. He would ruin everything.
“Mr. Ellerton,” she called sharply. Charlie started up, but before he could reach Dora’s side, the latter had turned to Mary and was holding out a friendly hand. Mary responded with alacrity.
“Miss Bellairs, isn’t it? We ought to know one another. I’m so glad to meet you.”
Charlie was by them now.
“And how do you do, Mr. Ellerton?” went on Mary, rivalling Dora in composure. And she also added a barely visible and quite inaudible “Hush!”
“Who are they?” asked Deane in a low voice.
“Their name’s Ashforth,” answered Laing.
“God bless my soul!” exclaimed the General. “I remember him now. We made his acquaintance at Interlaken, but his name had slipped from my memory. And that’s his wife? Fine girl, too. I must speak to him.” And full of kindly intent he bustled off and shook John warmly by the hand.
“My dear Ashforth, delighted to meet you again, and under such delightful conditions, too! Ah, well, it only comes once in a lifetime, does it?—in your case anyhow, I hope. I see Dora has introduced herself. You must present me. When was it?”
Portions of this address puzzled John considerably, but he thought it best to do as he was told.
“Mary,” he said, “let me introduce General Bellairs—Miss Bellairs’s father—to you. General Bell—”
The General interrupted him by addressing Mary with much, effusion.
“Delighted to meet you. Ah, you know our young friend Ellerton? Everybody does, it seems to me. Come, you must join us. Waiter, two more places. Lady Deane, let me introduce Mr. Ashforth. They’re on their——”
He paused. An inarticulate sound had proceeded from Mary’s lips.
“Beg pardon?” said the General.
A pin might have been heard to drop, while Mary, recovering herself, said coldly:
“I think there’s some mistake. I’m not Mrs. Ashforth.”
“Gad, it’s the old ‘un!” burst in a stage whisper from Arthur Laing, who seemed determined that John Ashforth should have a wife.
The General looked to his daughter for an explanation. Dora dared not show the emotion pictured on her face, and her back was towards the party. Charlie Ellerton was staring with a vacant look at the lady who was not Mrs. Ashforth. The worst had happened.
John came to the rescue. With an awkward laugh he said:
“Oh, you—you attribute too much happiness to me. This is Miss Travers. I—I—Her aunt, Miss Bussey, and she have kindly allowed me to join their travelling party. Miss Bussey is at that table,” and he pointed to “the old ‘un.”
Perhaps it was as well that at this moment the pent-up feelings which the situation, and above all the remorseful horror with which Laing was regarding his fictitious lady’s-maid, overcame Roger Deane. He burst into a laugh. After a moment the General followed heartily. Laing was the next, bettering his examples in his poignant mirth. Sir Roger sprang up.
“Come, Miss Travers,” he said, “sit down. Here’s the fellow who gave you your new name. Blame him,” and he indicated Laing, Then he cried, “General, we must have Miss Bussey, too.”
The combined party, however, was not, when fully constituted by the addition of Miss Bussey, a success. Two of its members ate nothing and alternated between gloomy silence and forced gayety; who these were may well be guessed. Mary and John found it difficult to surmount their embarrassment at the contretemps which had attended the introduction, or their perplexity over the cause of it. Laing was on thorns lest his distributions of parts and stations in life should be disclosed. The only bright feature was the congenial feeling which appeared at once to unite Miss Bussey and Sir Roger Deane. They sat together, and, aided by the General’s geniality and Lady Deane’s supramundane calm, carried the meal to a conclusion without an actual breakdown, ending up with a friendly wrangle over the responsibility for the bill. Finally it was on Sir Roger’s proposal that they all agreed to meet at five o’clock and take coffee, or what they would, together at a cafi by the water in the Bois de Boulogne. With this understanding the party broke up.
Dora and Charlie, lagging behind, found themselves alone. They hardly dared to look at one another, lest their composure should fail.
“They’re not married,” said Charlie.
“No.”
“They’ve broken it off!”
“Yes.”
“Because of us.”
“Yes.”
“While we——”
“Yes.”
“Well, in all my life, I never——”
“Oh, do be quiet.”
“What an infernal ass that fellow Laing——”
“Do you think they saw anything?”
“No. I half wish they had.”
“Oh, Mr. Ellerton, what shall we do? They’re still in love with us!”
“Rather. They’ve been waiting for us.”
Dora entered the hotel gates and sank into a chair in the court-yard.
“Well? she asked helplessly; but Charlie had no suggestion to offer.
“How could they?” she broke out indignantly. “How could they break off their marriage at the last moment like that? They—they were as good as married. It’s really hardly—people should know their own minds.”
She caught sight of a rueful smile on Charlie’s face.
“Oh, I know, but it’s different,” she added impatiently. “One expects it of you, but I didn’t expect it of John Ashforth.”
“And of yourself?” he asked softly.
“It’s all your fault, you wicked boy,” she answered.
Charlie sighed heavily.
“We must break it to them,” said he. “Mary will understand; she has such delicacy of feeling that——”
“You’re always praising that girl. I believe you’re in love with her still.”
“Well, you as good as told me I wasn’t fit to black Ashforth’s boots.”
“Anyhow he wouldn’t have—have—have tried to make a girl care for him when he knew she cared for somebody else.”
“Hang it, it seems to me Ashforth isn’t exactly immaculate. Why, in Switzerland——”
“Never mind Switzerland, Mr. Ellerton, please.”
A silence ensued. Then Charlie remarked, with a reproachful glance at Dora’s averted face, “And this is the sequel to Avignon! I shouldn’t have thought a girl could change so in forty-eight hours.”
Dora said nothing. She held her head very high in the air and looked straight in front of her.
“When you gave me that kiss——” resumed Charlie.
Now this form of expression was undoubtedly ambiguous; to give a kiss may mean: 1. What it literally says—to bestow a kiss. 2. To offer one’s self to be kissed. 3. To accept willingly a proffered kiss; and, without much straining of words, 4. Merely to refrain from angry expostulation and a rupture of acquaintance when one is kissed—this last partaking rather of the nature of the ratification of an unauthorized act, and being, in fact, the measure of Dora’s criminality. But the other shades of meaning caught her attention.
“You know it’s untrue; I never did,” she cried angrily. “I told you at the time that no gentleman would have done it.”
“Oh, you mean Ashforth, I suppose? It’s always Ashforth.”
“Well, he wouldn’t.”
“And some girls I know wouldn’t forgive a man on Monday and round on him on Wednesday.”
“Oh, you needn’t trouble to mention names. I know the paragon you’re thinking of!”
They were now at the hotel.
“Going in?” asked Charlie.
“Yes.”
“I suppose we shall go to the Bois together?”
“I shall ask papa or Sir Roger to take me.”
“Then I’ll go with Lady Deane.”
“I don’t mind who you go with, Mr. Ellerton.”
“I’ll take care that you’re annoyed as little as possible by my presence,”
“It doesn’t annoy me.”
“Doesn’t it, D——?”
“I don’t notice it one way or the other.”
“Oh.”
“Good-by for the present, Mr. Ellerton.”
“Good-by, Miss Bellairs; but I ought to thank you.”
“What for?”
“For making it easy to me to do what’s right,” and Charlie turned on his heel and made rapidly for the nearest cafi, where he ordered an absinthe.
Dora went wearily up to her bedroom, and, sitting down, reviewed the recent conversation. She could not make out how, or why, or where they had begun to quarrel. Yet they had certainly not only begun but made very fair progress, considering the time at their disposal. It had all been Charlie’s fault. He must be fond of that girl after all; if so, it was not likely that she would let him see that she minded. Let him go to Mary Travers, if—if he liked that sort of prim creature. She, Dora Bellairs, would not interfere. She would have no difficulty in finding someone who did care for her. Poor John! How happy he looked when he saw her! It was quite touching.
He really looked almost—almost. To her sudden annoyance and alarm she found herself finishing the sentence thus, “almost as Charlie did at Avignon.”
“Oh, he’s worth a thousand of Charlie,” she exclaimed, impatiently.
At half-past four Sir Roger Deane was waiting; in the hall. Presently Dora appeared.
“Where are the others?” she asked.
“Charlie’s having a drink. Your father and Maud aren’t coming. They’re going to rest.”
“Oh, well, we might start.”
“Excuse me, Miss Dora, there’s some powder on your nose.”
“Oh, is there? Thanks.”
“What have you been powdering for?”
“Really, Sir Roger! Besides the sun has ruined my complexion.”
“Oh, the sun,”
“Yes. Don’t be horrid. Do let’s start.”
“But Charlie—”
“I hate riding three in a cab.”
“Oh, and I like riding alone in one, so——”
“No, no. You must come with me. Mr. Ellerton can follow us. He’s always drinking, isn’t he? I dislike it so.”
Sir Roger, with a wink at an unresponsive plaster bust of M. le President, followed her to the door. They had just got into their little victoria when Charlie appeared, cigarette in hand.
“Charlie,” observed Deane, “Miss Bell airs thinks you’ll be more comfortable by yourself than perched on this front seat.”
“Especially as you’re smoking,” added Dora. “Allez, cocher.”
Charlie hailed another vehicle and got in. As he did so he remarked between his teeth, “I’m d——d if I stand it.”