His Lordship's Leopard Part 15

"Well, we arrested a lovely senorita on Fourteenth Street who was using the t.i.tle of your novel as a pa.s.sword. I can tell you confidentially that there's no doubt that she's one of the cleverest and most unscrupulous female spies in the Spanish secret service; and while they were deciding where to take her, a stranger, who we're certain was one of the Secretaries of their Legation, eloped with her, Black Maria and all, with the recklessness of a true hidalgo. They were joined by a band outside the city, where they overcame a Justice of the Peace who arrested them, after a desperate resistance on his part. The story of this unequal battle was one of the finest bits of bravery we've had for years.

"After dining at a hotel at Yonkers they held up the waiter with revolvers and escaped. Similar audacities were perpetrated at the boundary-line between the United States and Canada, and in spite of the most intelligent and valiant efforts on the part of the police, aided by our own special corps of detectives, they've so far eluded us. Their leader's said to be a perfect devil, who, as I tell you, is certainly a Secretary of the Spanish Legation."

"How do you know that?" asked Banborough.

"Ah," said Marchmont, looking wise and shaking his head, "the _Daily Leader_ has private sources of information. I wonder you've not heard anything of this."

"Yes," acquiesced the Englishman, "it _is_ curious, isn't it?"

"But," continued his friend, "you haven't told me yet why you came to Montreal."

"Well," said Cecil, laughing, "I can at least a.s.sure you that my trip here has been much less eventful than the one you described."

"By the way," said the journalist, "have you seen the last editorial about your book in the _Daily Leader_?"

The Englishman shook his head.

"No? Well, here goes." And Marchmont began to read forthwith:

"'English conservatism has recently received a shock from the scion of Blanford, and the Bishop's son, in connection with 'The Purple Kangaroo,' has caused the British lion to hump himself into the hotbed of American politics--'"

"Oh, shut up!" said Cecil, with more force than politeness.

"Don't you like it?" exclaimed the journalist. "There's a column and a half more. I blue-pencilled a copy and sent it over to your old man."

Banborough groaned.

"But," continued Marchmont, "this isn't anything to what we'll do when we've hounded the Dons out of Canada."

"What?" cried the author.

"Yes," went on his friend. "We've complained to your Foreign Office, and within a week every Spanish conspirator will receive notice to quit Her Majesty's North American colonies on pain of instant arrest and deportation."

Cecil waited to hear no more, but, pleading an imperative engagement, rushed away to summon the members of his party to a hurried council of war in their private sitting-room. All were present with the exception of Miss Arminster, who had gone to spend the day at a convent in the suburbs, where she had been brought up as a child.

After an hour of useless debating the council ended, as Banborough might have foreseen from the first, in the party giving up any solution of the problem as hopeless, and putting themselves unreservedly in his hands to lead them out of their difficulties. Cecil, who felt himself ill equipped for the role of a Moses, jammed his hat on his head, lit his pipe, and, thrusting his hands in his pockets, said he was going out where he could be quiet and think about it.

"Going to the Blue Nunnery, he means," said Smith, laughing, and nudging Spotts.

The actor grunted. Apparently the author's attentions to the fascinating Violet did not meet with his unqualified approval.

An hour later Banborough stood in the grey old garden of the nunnery, the sister who was his guide silently pointing out to him the figure of the little actress, whose bright garments were in striking contrast to the severe simplicity of her surroundings. When the Englishman turned to thank the nun, she had disappeared, and he and Miss Arminster had the garden to themselves.

She stood with her back to him, bending over some roses, unconscious of his presence, and for a few moments he remained silent, watching her un.o.bserved. The ten days which had pa.s.sed had done much to alter his position towards her, and he had come to fully realise that he was honestly in love with this woman. Even the fact of her having been married at Ste. Anne de Beau Pre, which information he had elicited from her on the occasion of their pilgrimage to that shrine a few days before, had not served to cool his ardour. Indeed, the fact that his suit seemed hopeless made him all the more anxious to win her for his wife.

After he had been watching her for some minutes, a subtle intuition seemed to tell her of his presence, and he approached her as she raised her face from the roses to greet him.

"I came to see you--" he began, and paused, hardly knowing how to continue.

"Am I not then allowed even one holiday?" she asked.

"Is my presence so much of a burden?" he inquired, realising for the first time the full force of what her statement implied, as a hurried mental review of the past fortnight showed him that he had scarcely ever been absent from her side. Indeed, it no longer seemed natural not to be with her.

"Oh, I didn't mean to be rude," she said, "but I do like a day out of the world occasionally. You know, when I come back here I forget for the time that I've ever lived any other life than that which is a.s.sociated with this dear old place."

He thought grimly that a young lady who had been married four times before she was twenty-five must have to undergo a considerable amount of mental obliteration.

"I think you'd tire of it very soon if you had to live here always," he said.

"I'm not sure," she replied. "I think--but of course you wouldn't understand that--only, life on the stage isn't all bright and amusing, and there are times when one simply longs for a quiet, old-world place like this."

"I believe you'd like Blanford," he suggested.

"I should love it," she a.s.sured him. "But what would your father say to me? I'd probably shock him out of his gaiters--if he wears them. Does he?"

"I suppose so," said Cecil. The fact was that the raiment of the Bishop of Blanford did not particularly interest him at that moment. He had more important things to talk about, things that had no connection whatsoever with the immediate future of the A. B. C. Company. Yet the mention of his father caused him to stop and think, and thought, in this case, proved fatal to sentiment. He thrust his hands into his pockets and addressed himself to the more prosaic topics of life, saying:

"My excuse for intruding on you is that our troubles are by no means over. The authorities, not content with driving us out of the United States, are preparing to order us out of Canada as well, and the question of where we are to go is decidedly perplexing."

"Oh, dear!" said the little woman, "I think I'll go into the convent after all."

"That settles the difficulty as far as you're concerned. Do you think they'd admit me?"

"Don't talk nonsense. What do the others say?"

"Oh, they say a good many things, but nothing practical, so I came to you for advice."

"Well, to speak frankly," she replied, "if I were you, I'd drop us all and run away home. It's much the easiest solution of the difficulty."

"Excuse me," he said. "I'm a gentleman, and besides--"

"Well, what?"

"Besides," he continued, thinking it better to be discreet, "I doubt if I should be welcome. I've a letter from the governor in my pocket, which I haven't yet had courage to open. I dare say it won't be pleasant reading; besides which, it's been chasing me round the country for the last five or six weeks, and must be rather ancient history."

"Look at it and see," she advised. "They may be ready to kill the fatted calf for you, after all."

"I'm afraid they do regard me rather in the light of a prodigal," he admitted. "However, here goes." And breaking the seal of the envelope, he read the letter aloud:

"THE PALACE, BLANFORD.

"MY DEAR SON:

"Do you realise that it is nearly a year since your Aunt Matilda and I have received news of you? This has been a source of great grief and pain to both of us, but it has not moved me to anger. It has rather caused me to devote such hours as I could spare from the preparation of my series of sermons on the miracle of Jonah to personal introspection, in the endeavour to discover, if possible, whether the cause of our estrangement lay in any defect of my own.

"It may be that you achieve a certain degree of spiritual enlightenment in producing a book ent.i.tled 'The Purple Kangaroo.'

I hope so, though I have not read it. Nor do I wholly agree with your good aunt, who contends that the t.i.tle savours too much of the Apocrypha, and I say nothing of the undesirable popularity you seem to have attained in the United States. I only ask you to come home.