Charles Rex Part 20

"Never mind!" said Bunny, in a brotherly tone. "I'll kick you every time I see it coming if you like."

"Will you really? That would be jolly decent of you." The wistfulness vanished in a laugh that was quick and musical, wholly spontaneous.

"You bet I will!" said Bunny.

"Right O! Mind you do! Now get out of the way and see me jump that rose tree!"

There followed the light scamper of feet, and Maud raised herself swiftly and leaned forth in time to see an athletic little figure in navy blue wearing a jaunty Panama hat, skim like a bird over a sweeping Dorothy Perkins just coming into bloom and alight on one leg with the perfect poise of a winged Mercury on the other side.

CHAPTER VI

HOW TO MANAGE MEN

Bunny's lanky form followed and also cleared the rose-tree with infinitely less grace, and again the girl laughed, her wide blue eyes alight with mirth.

"What an antic! I thought you were going to pull up the rose bush with your heels! What are you doing that for?"

Bunny's hands were on her shoulders. He was plainly enjoying himself thoroughly. "I'm feeling for the wings," he explained. "I'll swear you never jumped it. Where do you keep 'em?"

She drew herself away from his touch. "No, I haven't got any. They don't grow on people like me. Don't let's stay here! I feel as if we're being watched."

It was then that Maud spoke from her window in her quiet gentle voice that yet held a certain authority.

"Bunny, bring our visitor up to see me!"

Both Bunny and his companion started and looked up, and Maud saw the girl's face fully for the first time--a nervous little face with haunting wide blue eyes made more intense by the short thick black lashes that surrounded them, eyes that seemed to plead for kindness. There was charm about the pointed chin and a good deal of sweetness about the moulding of the mouth. But it was the eyes that held Maud's attention. They were the eyes of a creature who has known the wild agony of fear and is not easily rea.s.sured. Yet the face was the face of a child.

She leaned out a little further on her sill and addressed the stranger.

"Come up and speak to me!" she said very kindly. "Bunny will show you the way."

A shy flickering smile answered her. She cast a questioning look at Bunny.

"Yes, that's Maud--my sister," said Bunny. "Come along! This way!"

They entered the house by a French window, and Maud drew back into her room. What was there in that childish face that appealed so tremendously to her womanhood--wholly banishing her first involuntary sense of recoil?

She could not have said, she was only conscious of the woman in her throbbing with a deep compa.s.sion. She stood and waited for the child's coming with a strangely poignant expectation.

She heard Bunny's voice talking cheerily on the stairs, but his words provoked no response. She went to the door and opened it.

Bunny was leading the way; in fact his companion seemed to be lagging very considerably in the rear.

Maud moved out into the pa.s.sage, and Bunny stood to one side with a courteous gesture. "Mademoiselle Antoinette Larpent!" he announced.

The small figure in blue drew itself together with a certain bravado and came forward.

Maud held out her hands. "My dear child," she said, "I expected you long ago."

The hands she clasped were very small and cold. They did not cling to her as she had half expected. The blue eyes flashed her a single nervous glance and fell.

"I'm sorry I'm late, madam," said the visitor in a low, punctilious voice.

Maud felt amused and chilled in the same moment. "Come and sit down!" she said. "We will have some tea upstairs. Bunny, go and order it, will you?"

"With pleasure," said Bunny. "And may I return?"

She smiled at him as she pa.s.sed an arm about the girl's narrow shoulders.

"Yes, you can come back when it's ready. Come in here, dear! You will like to take off your things. How long have you been here?"

"Only five minutes," came the murmured answer; she thought it had a deprecating sound.

"You must be tired," she said kindly. "You came from town? How is it you are so late? Did you miss your train?"

"No, madam." Very nervously came the reply. The contrast between this and the boyish freedom of manner on the terrace a few seconds before would have been ludicrous if it had not been somehow pathetic.

She pa.s.sed on, too considerate to press for details. "Take off your hat and coat, won't you? When we have had some tea I will take you to your room."

She was pleased to see that Charlie's _protege_ was garbed with extreme simplicity. Her fair hair, which had been closely shorn, was beginning to curl at the ends. She liked the delicate contrasting line of the black brows above the deep blue of the eyes. She noticed that the veins on the white temples showed with great distinctness.

"Sit down!" she said. "And now you must tell me what to call you. Your name is Antoinette, isn't it?"

"I'm generally called Toby," said the visitor in a very shy voice. "But you will call me--what you like."

"Would you like me to call you Toby?" Maud asked.

"Yes, please," said Toby with unexpected briskness.

Maud smiled. "Very well, my dear. Then that is settled. We are not going to be strangers, you and I. I expect you know that Lord Saltash and I are great friends--though I have never met your father."

Toby's pale young face flushed suddenly. She was silent for a moment.

Then: "Lord Saltash has been very good to me," she said in her shy voice.

"He--saved me from drowning. Wasn't it--wasn't it nice of him to--take the trouble?"

"Quite nice of him," Maud agreed. "You must have been very frightened, weren't you?"

Toby suppressed a shudder. "I was rather. And the water was dreadfully cold. I thought we should never come up again. It was like--it was like--" She stopped herself. "He said I was never to talk about it--or think about it--so I won't, if you don't mind."

"Tell me about your father!" said Maud sympathetically.

For the second time the blue eyes flashed towards her. "Oh, he is still ill in a nursing home and not allowed to see anyone." There was a hint of recklessness in her voice. "They say he'll get well again, but--I don't know."

"You are anxious about him," Maud said.

"No, I'm not." Recklessness became something akin to defiance. "I don't like him much. He's so surly."