Count Bunker Part 48

Nor did he at all exaggerate their sensation.

"Miss Maddison!"

Alas, that it should be so far beyond the power of mere inky words to express all that was implied in Eva's accents!

"Miss Gallos.h.!.+"

Nor is it less impossible to supply the significance of Eleanor's intonation.

"Ladies, ladies!" he implored, "do not, I pray you, misunderstand! I vas not responsible--I could not help it. You both VOULD come mit me! No, no, do not look so at me! I mean not zat--I mean I could not do vizout both of you. Ach, Himmel! Vat do I say? I should say zat--zat----"

He broke off with a start of apprehension.

"Look! Zere comes a man mit a bicycle! Zis is too public! Come mit me into ze station and I shall eggsplain! He waves his fist! Come! you vould not be seen here?"

He offered one arm to Eva, the other to Eleanor; and so alarming were the gesticulations of the approaching cyclist, and so beseeching the Baron's tones, that without more ado they clung to him and hurried on to the platform.

"Come to ze vaiting-room!" he whispered. "Zere shall ve be safe!"

Alack for the luck of the Baron von Blitzenberg! Out of the very door they were approaching stepped a solitary lady, sole pa.s.senger from the south train, and at the sight of those three, linked arm in arm, she staggered back and uttered a cry more piercing than the engine's distant whistle.

"Rudolph!" cried this lady.

"Alicia!" gasped the Baron.

His rescuers said nothing, but clung to him the more tightly, while in the Baroness's startled eyes a harder light began to blaze.

"Who are these, Rudolph?"

He cleared his throat, but the process seemed to take some time, and in the meanwhile he felt the grip of his deliverers relax.

"Who is that lady?" demanded Eleanor.

"His wife," replied the Baroness.

The Baron felt his arms freed now; but still his Alicia waited an answer. It came at last, but not from the Baron's lips.

"Well, here you all are!" said a cheerful voice behind them.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

They turned as though they expected to see an apparition. Nor was the appearance of the speaker calculated to disappoint such expectations.

Their startled eyes beheld indeed the most remarkable figure that had ever wheeled a bicycle down the platform of Torrydhulish Station.

Hatless, in evening clothes with blue lapels upon the coat, splashed liberally with mud, his feet equipped only with embroidered socks and saturated pumps, his s.h.i.+rt-front bestarred with souvenirs of all the soils for thirty miles, Count Bunker made a picture that lived long in their memories. Yet no foolish consciousness of his plight disturbed him as he addressed the Baron.

"Thank you, Baron, for escorting my fair friends so far. I shall now take them off your hands."

He smiled with pleasant familiarity upon the two astonished girls, and then started as though for the first time he recognized the Baroness.

"Baroness!" he cried, bowing profoundly, "this is a very unexpected pleasure! You came by the early train, I presume? A tiresome journey, isn't it?"

But bewilderment and suspicion were all that he could read in reply.

"What--what are YOU doing here?"

He was not in the least disconcerted.

"Meeting my cousins" (he indicated the Misses Gallosh and Maddison with an amiable glance), "whom the Baron has been kind enough to look after till my arrival."

Audaciously approaching more closely, he added, in a voice intended for her ear and the Baron's alone--

"I must throw myself, I see, upon your mercy, and ask you not to tell any tales out of school. Cousins, you know, don't always want their meetings advertised--do they, Baron?"

Alicia's eyes softened a little.

"Then, they are really your----"

"Call 'em cousins, please! I have your pledge that you won't tell? Ah, Baron, your charming wife and I understand one another."

Then raising his voice for the benefit of the company generally--

"Well, you two will want to have a little talk in the waiting-room, I've no doubt. We shall pace the platform. Very fit Rudolph's looking, isn't he, Baroness? You've no idea how his lungs have strengthened."

"His lungs!" exclaimed the Baroness in a changed voice.

Giving the Baron a wink to indicate that there lay the ace of trumps, he answered rea.s.suringly--

"When you learn how he has improved you'll forgive me, I'm sure, for taking him on this little trip. Well, see you somewhere down the line, no doubt--I'm going by the same train."

He watched them pa.s.s into the waiting-room, and then turned an altered face to the two dumbfounded girls. It was expressive now solely of sympathy and contrition.

"Let us walk a little this way," he began, and thus having removed them safely from earshot of the waiting-room door, he addressed himself to the severest part of his task.

"My dear girls, I owe you I don't know how many apologies for presuming to claim you as my friends. The acuteness of the emergency is my only excuse, and I throw myself most contritely upon your mercy!"

This second projection of himself upon a lady's mercy proved as successful as the first.

"Well," said Eleanor slowly, "I guess maybe we can forgive you for that; but what I want to know is--what's happened?--who's who?--and where just exactly are we?"

"That's just what I want to know too," added Eva sadly.

Indeed, they both had a hint of tears in their eyes, and in their voices.

"What has happened," replied the Count, "is that a couple of thoughtless masqueraders came up here to play a little joke, and succeeded in getting themselves into a sc.r.a.pe. For your share in getting us out of it we cannot feel too grateful."

"But, who is----?" the girls began together, and then stopped, with a rise of color and a suspicion of displeasure in their interchange of eyes.