The Motor Maid Part 41

"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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 a.n.a.lyze, 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 gra.s.s, 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Jack's hand, inside Mr. Stokes's beautiful, tall collar, shook Bertie back and forth till his teeth chattered like castanets_"]

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 x.x.xI

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 ladys.h.i.+p 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 embarra.s.sing 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 n.o.ble 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 ladys.h.i.+p to speak up in his defence--or at least to criticize the chauffeur for presuming to take her stepson's chastis.e.m.e.nt 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."