CHAPTER XIII

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_ He never brought Cissy back, but Cissy came one day without him, as

fresh as before from the hands of Marguerite, or only, at the

season's end, a trifle less fresh. She was, however, distinctly

less serene. She had brought nothing with her and looked about

with impatience for the forms and the place to write. The latter

convenience, at Cocker's, was obscure and barely adequate, and her

clear voice had the light note of disgust which her lover's never

showed as she responded with a "There?" of surprise to the gesture

made by the counter-clerk in answer to her sharp question. Our

young friend was busy with half a dozen people, but she had

dispatched them in her most businesslike manner by the time her

ladyship flung through the bars this light of re-appearance. Then

the directness with which the girl managed to receive the

accompanying missive was the result of the concentration that had

caused her to make the stamps fly during the few minutes occupied

by the production of it. This concentration, in turn, may be

described as the effect of the apprehension of imminent relief. It

was nineteen days, counted and checked off, since she had seen the

object of her homage; and as, had he been in London, she should,

with his habits, have been sure to see him often, she was now about

to learn what other spot his presence might just then happen to

sanctify. For she thought of them, the other spots, as

ecstatically conscious of it, expressively happy in it.

 

But, gracious, how handsome was her ladyship, and what an added

price it gave him that the air of intimacy he threw out should have

flowed originally from such a source! The girl looked straight

through the cage at the eyes and lips that must so often have been

so near as own--looked at them with a strange passion that for an

instant had the result of filling out some of the gaps, supplying

the missing answers, in his correspondence. Then as she made out

that the features she thus scanned and associated were totally

unaware of it, that they glowed only with the colour of quite other

and not at all guessable thoughts, this directly added to their

splendour, gave the girl the sharpest impression she had yet

received of the uplifted, the unattainable plains of heaven, and

yet at the same time caused her to thrill with a sense of the high

company she did somehow keep. She was with the absent through her

ladyship and with her ladyship through the absent. The only pang--

but it didn't matter--was the proof in the admirable face, in the

sightless preoccupation of its possessor, that the latter hadn't a

notion of her. Her folly had gone to the point of half believing

that the other party to the affair must sometimes mention in Eaton

Square the extraordinary little person at the place from which he

so often wired. Yet the perception of her visitor's blankness

actually helped this extraordinary little person, the next instant,

to take refuge in a reflexion that could be as proud as it liked.

"How little she knows, how little she knows!" the girl cried to

herself; for what did that show after all but that Captain

Everard's telegraphic confidant was Captain Everard's charming

secret? Our young friend's perusal of her ladyship's telegram was

literally prolonged by a momentary daze: what swam between her and

the words, making her see them as through rippled shallow sunshot

water, was the great, the perpetual flood of "How much I know--how

much I know!" This produced a delay in her catching that, on the

face, these words didn't give her what she wanted, though she was

prompt enough with her remembrance that her grasp was, half the

time, just of what was NOT on the face. "Miss Dolman, Parade

Lodge, Parade Terrace, Dover. Let him instantly know right one,

Hotel de France, Ostend. Make it seven nine four nine six one.

Wire me alternative Burfield's."

 

The girl slowly counted. Then he was at Ostend. This hooked on

with so sharp a click that, not to feel she was as quickly letting

it all slip from her, she had absolutely to hold it a minute longer

and to do something to that end. Thus it was that she did on this

occasion what she never did--threw off a "Reply paid?" that sounded

officious, but that she partly made up for by deliberately affixing

the stamps and by waiting till she had done so to give change. She

had, for so much coolness, the strength that she considered she

knew all about Miss Dolman.

 

"Yes--paid." She saw all sorts of things in this reply, even to a

small suppressed start of surprise at so correct an assumption;

even to an attempt the next minute at a fresh air of detachment.

"How much, with the answer?" The calculation was not abstruse, but

our intense observer required a moment more to make it, and this

gave her ladyship time for a second thought. "Oh just wait!" The

white begemmed hand bared to write rose in sudden nervousness to

the side of the wonderful face which, with eyes of anxiety for the

paper on the counter, she brought closer to the bars of the cage.

"I think I must alter a word!" On this she recovered her telegram

and looked over it again; but she had a new, an obvious trouble,

and studied it without deciding and with much of the effect of

making our young woman watch her.

 

This personage, meanwhile, at the sight of her expression, had

decided on the spot. If she had always been sure they were in

danger her ladyship's expression was the best possible sign of it.

There was a word wrong, but she had lost the right one, and much

clearly depended on her finding it again. The girl, therefore,

sufficiently estimating the affluence of customers and the

distraction of Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk, took the jump and

gave it. "Isn't it Cooper's?"

 

It was as if she had bodily leaped--cleared the top of the cage and

alighted on her interlocutress. "Cooper's?"--the stare was

heightened by a blush. Yes, she had made Juno blush.

 

This was all the greater reason for going on. "I mean instead of

Burfield's."

 

Our young friend fairly pitied her; she had made her in an instant

so helpless, and yet not a bit haughty nor outraged. She was only

mystified and scared. "Oh, you know--?"

 

"Yes, I know!" Our young friend smiled, meeting the other's eyes,

and, having made Juno blush, proceeded to patronise her. "I'LL do

it"--she put out a competent hand. Her ladyship only submitted,

confused and bewildered, all presence of mind quite gone; and the

next moment the telegram was in the cage again and its author out

of the shop. Then quickly, boldly, under all the eyes that might

have witnessed her tampering, the extraordinary little person at

Cocker's made the proper change. People were really too giddy, and

if they WERE, in a certain case, to be caught, it shouldn't be the

fault of her own grand memory. Hadn't it been settled weeks

before?--for Miss Dolman it was always to be "Cooper's." _

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